


Profane

by Metronomeblue



Series: imagine me & you- forever [6]
Category: Bleach
Genre: Aizen does not believe in boundaries or checking in, Aizen is One Kinky Motherfucker, Aizen is a Priest, Aizen is less of a creep, Altar Sex, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternate Universe - Priests, Asphyxiation, Autoerotic Asphyxiation, Awkward Flirting, Breaking Celibacy Vows, Breathplay, Church Girl is a shop assistant, Clothing Kink, Creampie, Crying, Dominance, Dubious Consent, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional crisis, F/M, Family Issues, First Kiss, Gin Will Not Be Pleased, Hisana Lives, I guess??? that seems closest anyway, Listen... It's 2k18 I'm writing for myself now, Loss of Virginity, Male-Female Friendship, Masturbation, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Prayer, Priest Kink, Religious Conflict, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Shuhei is a Barista in his spare time and Gay all the time, Submission, Unsafe Sex, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex, Virginity or Celibacy Kink, Weddings, Wet & Messy, Write the Hierophilia fanfic you want to see in the world, a formal apology to anyone these tags may have scarred, but still a creep, ch 5 is the peak of the dubious consent and then after that they've figured stuff out, discussions of consent, hierophilia, that tag still makes me cringe, this is filth
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-08
Updated: 2019-03-01
Packaged: 2019-03-02 11:38:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 51,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13317300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Metronomeblue/pseuds/Metronomeblue
Summary: Profane: to treat something sacred with irreverence or disrespect. To desecrate, defile, violate.He placed the wafer on your tongue, eyes still locked on yours, still smiling that gentle smile. His fingers were just as warm on your lips as they had been at the edges of your hands, and you could feel the heat through the wafer as he pressed it into your tongue. His thumb brushed over your lips as he withdrew his hand, and you could swear they tingled for hours after. As though he’d kissed them. As though he’d kissed you. Your voice was dead in your mouth, still tied up in his eyes and his voice and the warmth of his hands.





	1. Self/Control

**Author's Note:**

> I.... have no explanation

In the morning light, the world was quiet. The walk to the church was slow, your feet reluctant to tread the path you knew so well. You walked step by step, your strides short and careful. Stretching your isolation. Once you got to the top of the hill, stepped into the church, you would be trapped. You couldn’t stand it. Going to church was becoming difficult. You filed in with all the others, your best clothes starched and ironed to flat perfection. You sat in the front row as you always did, quiet and prim and polite. You pretended to listen to the sermons. You pretended to listen to your neighbor. You did a lot of pretending these days.

It was one thing when you were a child, and you could sit unbothered, enraptured by stories of men and magic, gods and monsters. It was another thing entirely as an adult, to know you’d inevitably end up beside Mrs. Shibuya and her unbearably single son, both of whom would try to monopolize your attention and distract you from… well you didn’t know what from. These days you spent most of mass with your eyes glazed over, following the patterns of stained glass light on the walls and nodding whenever you were expected to.

You walked in reluctantly, dipping your fingers into the holy water, crossing yourself and praying for patience. You walked to the front row, not looking around, not looking anywhere but ahead of you. It would do you no good to delay the inevitable. You sat, the cool wood of the pew familiar and comforting. You crossed your legs and looked to your right. But today Mrs. Shibuya and her son were both across the church from you, and you were free to pay attention to the sermon for the first time in a month. A wash of relief flew through you, and the tension faded from your shoulders.

You stood with the others when the priest came in. He wasn’t loud about it, didn’t make a fuss. Simply closed the door to the vestry and walked out into the church. He looked over at the assembled parishioners, a flash of slight surprise crossing his face.  

“Sorry for the delay,” he said with an apologetic smile. “There was something I had to attend to.”

He set his bible and sermon down on the pulpit, took a brief moment to arrange things to his satisfaction, then looked up and beamed at them. You sat with everyone else, feeling strangely relieved. As if your mood hinged on his, on that smile.

Father Aizen had a lovely smile.

He turned to the right page in the bible,  looked up at everyone, and began to speak.

Father Aizen’s deep, calm voice filled the church, and though it had once seemed as large as the sky, as expansive as heaven, he made it seem small. He made everything around him seem small in comparison, made you feel as insignificant as an ant, a dust mote, a single leaf. But it was a strange smallness, in that he made it seem bearable, integral. His sermons seemed to fill every single listener with a deep humility, a sense of their own immediacy in the world. Most of the parishioners liked that, praised him for it, extolled the virtuousness of him and all who truly listened.

But something about Father Aizen scared you. For all that his kindness and sweet smiles put all the girls at ease, for all that the local boys scoffed and said that at least he wasn’t some pompous prick, there was a part of you that trembled in his presence. A part of you that felt a kind of vibration, a strange theremin note of terror. He made you feel small, and tied up in that smallness was a sick feeling of fear, a deep instinct that you shouldn’t be here, shouldn’t be listening. You’d banished that feeling years ago, you’d thought. Torn it out of yourself and thrown it away.

Watching him, you tried to understand. You tried to fill yourself with acceptance and openness. You did your best to look at him with unbiased eyes, but a part of you still curled away, still whispered  _no, no, something about him is wrong_. You shoved that part of yourself down. He was sweet, the girls said. He was gentle and kind.

It wasn’t as if he wasn’t pretty. He _was_. Soft brown hair curling haphazardly into his eyes, over his ears. That gentle smile, wide and bright. Those eyes. Those deep, fathomless brown eyes, keen and hidden behind thick glasses as if to protect them from something. He was very attractive, you thought. But not quite sweet. He was sharper than he seemed, perceptive and intuitive. He seemed ill-suited for the seminary. Too beautiful, perhaps, lit by soft sun and cast in blue and amber shadow by the stained glass around him. You watched him thoughtfully, watched the way his eyes moved over the congregation, the way they shifted and focused attentively on person after person. And then they landed on you. You flinched a little, his gaze so sharp and intent you felt as though he could see right through you. He had to know what you’d been thinking. He had to see it in your face, the flush high on your cheeks. There was no way he couldn’t. He smiled, and continued to speak, those cold brown eyes locked on yours.

He did not look away.

He was talking, you knew he was, but you didn’t hear a single word he said. All you could see was his eyes, narrow and sharp, and fixed on you. You were caught, transfixed, like an animal in a snare, watching hope fade. You could hear the clear thrum of his voice, but no words were made clear to you, no sentence did more than slip past you. You could have caught fire and burned away, and you wouldn’t have known or cared.  _Sirens_ , you thought.  _When they spoke of sirens, it was him they meant._  Luring, leading, soft and strong, his voice echoed in your head, rattled through your whole body like a clap of thunder, a single, striking heartbeat. You had to clench your fists to even try to break free, digging your nails into the flesh of your palms. His eyes bored into you, dark and inscrutable. His voice faded, leaving a single moment of echoing, stark silence. And then.

“Amen,” the crowd echoed in chorus, crossing themselves as one and gazing adoringly up at him. You didn’t notice, because you were looking up at him, too. His smile never changed.

“Amen,” you murmured with the crowd, crossing yourself with a fumbling hand. You finally broke away, fixed your eyes on the ground. Safer that way. Safer. But you could feel him watching you still, could feel the cold fixture of his gaze on you in a way that made your shoulders itch, your chest tighten, your stomach drop. You felt caught, somehow. Pinned down. The rest of the sermon passed in a haze of heartbeats and the pain in your palms, your eyes fixed on the floor before you.

“And now, for the Kyrie, eleison,” he said, in that half-familiar way that so charmed his congregation. You stood with the others, and though your mouth moved in the familiar rhythms, the well-worn words pleading for God’s mercy, no sound crossed your lips. It was as though your voice was frozen, locked in your mouth where it could go no further. Like he’d taken it and added it to his own, that mellifluous chorus of feeling in his throat. You felt small. He made you small. You looked up once more, just a glance, but you caught his eye and he caught yours, and your breath left you, too. The light was beginning to slant through the windows just right, hitting his face so he was haloed in gold, so his eyes glowed with copper and the deep brown that made you feel held under his power, even from so far away.

The chant ended, and you had to stand, to join the line for the eucharist. You legs felt slow and numb beneath you, and dread welled in your stomach. You couldn’t face him. Not like this. What you were feeling… he was a priest. A man of God. Untouchable, distant, holy. Sacred. How could you even entertain such thoughts? You kept your eyes on the floor, your fists clenched, your mind racing with self-loathing and repressed feelings you didn’t know how to name. And then you were at the fore of the line. You looked up, and your fists unclenched, your mind went blank.

“In the name of the Father,” he murmured, crossing you, “the Son and the Holy Spirit.” Lifting the wine, he gave you a short, shallow bow. Your own was lower, slower. Delaying the inevitable. You straightened and met his eyes, and the flash of shame that overtook you was sudden and sharp. He was beautiful, and he was kind, and you wanted to be forgiven. You wanted absolution.

Your hands shook when you reached up to hold the goblet, and you could feel the warmth of his fingers just inches from your own. He murmured the blessing as he tilted the goblet, pouring a single mouthful of wine out and into you. His gaze made you shiver, made you feel something you didn’t know how to express. You swallowed, and the cold liquid trickled down your spine like fear or need. You looked up at him, mute and pliant, and he smiled down at you.

“Open,” he reminded you, and you were helpless against the quiet force of him. You opened your mouth, feeling small and weak and dirty.

He placed the wafer on your tongue, eyes still locked on yours, still smiling that gentle smile. His fingers were just as warm on your lips as they had been at the edges of your hands, and you could feel the heat through the wafer as he pressed it into your tongue. His thumb brushed over your lips as he withdrew his hand, and you could swear they tingled for hours after. As though he’d kissed them. As though he’d kissed you. Your voice was dead in your mouth, still tied up in his eyes and his voice and the warmth of his hands. You swallowed this, too, and you could swear you tasted his fingerprints on it. He waited, eyes heavy and expectant, for your words. Your mouth opened, then closed, no words escaping it. A small frown made its way onto his face, and you felt a burning sorrow, the need to make it up to him somehow. You were already wronging him in ways he had no way of knowing about. You couldn’t live with wronging him outside of your mind, too.

“What do you say?” He asked, and you shivered, the weight of his disappointment shaking you.

“Thank you, Father,” you said, and the strange, dark happiness that filled his face scared you, because it weighed heavy in your heart, a heavy spark in your stomach. What you felt wasn’t contrition or the blessing of God’s flesh.

What you felt was lust.

You stood, crossing yourself and trying not to stumble, walking back to your seat with shaking knees. There was a burning in the low swoop of your stomach, an uncomfortable, strange itch between your legs, and you did your best not to think of it. You could feel a discomfort, an urge to move, a pressure at the point between your thighs you had no interest in addressing at that moment. It wasn’t as if you had never felt arousal like this, but to feel it then, in the middle of mass? To feel sinful desire in a place of such sanctity shamed you. It filled you with awareness not only of the weakness of your body, to feel lust toward a man when you were meant to be thinking of God, but the weakness of your soul to feel such lust for a man of God, to crave that which belonged only to Him. You could feel the wetness gathering in your core, and you stiffened, clenching your fists again. You would resist temptation. You would. You sat, relieved at last, in the pew. You could feel the liquid pooling in your underwear, leaking through, wetting your thighs.  _Resist_ , you told yourself.  _You are in the house of God._

You looked up, and Father Aizen’s smile hit you like a bullet to the brain. You felt the dampness between your thighs even as his dark eyes traced over you, knowing, calm, and a stubborn, sick twist of arousal stabbed through you. You felt your core clench around nothing, and your heart sank even further. Everything about this was wrong. You wanted to cry. You had never thought of him like this before. Why now? What had happened to you to kindle this burning, empty feeling in you, to turn your head so fully?

You tried your hardest to keep it off your mind. You truly tried to focus on the closing of mass. But the itch between your legs was only growing, burning stronger with each word he spoke, pulling and playing at you. You clenched your jaw, as well as your hands, gazing unblinking at the cross behind him. You would resist. Whatever dark urges his face brought out in you, whatever desires you felt, you would refrain from inflicting them upon him.  Your trials were your own.

You could feel the trickle of wetness down your thigh, sweat and arousal pooling at the point where your thighs clenched together, held iron against the tide of lust and guilt thrashing in your chest, the heat in your stomach, the pulsing, present need at your core. You could feel it dripping into your skirt, and you quickly thanked the Lord that it was thick  enough not to stain. You could feel it trickle down to your knee, ticklish and wet between the wood and your skin.  _Oh hell,_ you thought. _No._  But you couldn’t move, couldn’t uncross your ankles, couldn’t shift in your seat the way your stubborn need wanted you to. That would be weakness. That would be giving in.

“Amen,” the crowd echoed again.

“Amen,” you repeated in the barest whisper, light and hollow. You stood with the others and resisted the urge to check the backs of your legs. You didn’t look. You didn’t press a hand down over the back of your dress, feeling for where your arousal might have given you away. You walked to the door, slow and measured with the others. When you reached father Aizen, in his customary black, his soft smile and crooked glasses, you did not look at him.

You shook his hand, one quick, loose movement where your hands barely brushed.

“Goodbye,” he said, and you nodded in return, not meeting his eyes.

“Thank you, Father,” you murmured again, chancing a look up at him, and his smile hurt to see. It was as sweet and gentle as always, as innocent and wise. He looked at you like any of the other women. He had no idea what sick, ugly things you wanted from him. And if you had your way he never would. You kept moving, quickly enough to be out of the church by the time Mrs. Shibuya was at the door.

“Does she come alone every week?” You could hear him asking her, and you began walking faster. You didn’t want to hear whatever she told him. You didn’t want to hear a word out of her mouth. You sighed, cursing yourself for being unkind. You also made a note to attend confession as soon as possible, until it occurred to you that that would mean telling Father Aizen what you had felt towards him. Your throat locked up, thick and choking, and you swallowed a sob. You just kept walking, feeling the slickness rubbing wet and uncomfortable between your thighs the whole way home. It felt like a reminder of a crime you hadn’t yet committed.

You cleaned yourself up when you got home. Unlocked your empty house and then locked it again behind you, locked yourself into the bathroom even though there was no chance of anybody coming in. You tore off your best dress, undoing the buttons with shaking, uncooperative fingers, leaving it crumpled on the ground, undid your bra, your underwear, shucked your shoes and socks, rid yourself of any layer of clothing. You scrubbed furiously at your thighs, still weeping bitterly under the ice-cold water.  _Go away_ , you thought, trying desperately to banish Father Aizen’s face from your mind.  _Go away._

When your fingers were pruned, your shaking too much to even try anymore to clean yourself, your turned the knob, stepped out of the shower and into an unforgiving towel. You could swear you could still feel the slickness of your own arousal between your thighs, and you had to resist the temptation to scrub at them just a little bit more with the corner of the towel. You had washed it away long ago.

You couldn’t wash his face away, though. God knows you had tried.

* * *

Sosuke turned from the door of the church, closing it behind him. Alone. She was alone.

“ _In that little house by Ash Lane_ ,” Mrs. Shibuya had so obligingly told him. “ _The parents left when she turned eighteen. Haven’t been back since!_ ” And her sincere and obvious glee in being the one to tell him this had him a hair’s breadth from rolling his eyes and referring her to several passages about gossip and the love of your neighbor, but that would come off as chastising, or worse, dislikeable, and he simply  _couldn’t be_  dislikeable. Instead he had nodded politely and asked after her son, who was  _“fine, fine, you know I was hoping one day I might get him set up with that girl, she’d be so lovely for him, and you know my Matoko is a catch._ ”

He looked down at the place where she had sat and smiled at the thin sheen of moisture on the pew. For all that she had reined herself in, kept herself tightly controlled, her body couldn’t deny itself entirely. There was a part of her that had responded very favorably to his efforts, the little games he was playing. He reached out and brushed a finger through the wetness she’d left, felt the slick, sticky fluid on his skin. He brought it to his face and licked it from his hand and smiled darkly at the acidic sharpness that filled his mouth. He doubted that that  _boy_  would ever bring her to such a state, let alone further, the way Sosuke knew he could. What a sweet little thing she was. What a sweet, needy little thing, indeed.

She’d be  _so lovely_  if he indulged her, he was sure.

* * *

The next Sunday, his fingertips touched yours over the goblet of wine, hot and soft contrasting against the cool metal. He tilted it into your mouth, more forceful than before, almost choking you with the ice-cold wine that fell like stone to your stomach, froze your throat and frosted your tongue so you couldn’t speak. You swallowed desperately, knowing, knowing it was more than a sip, knowing it was more than he was meant to give. You gasped when he pulled the cup away, your fingers slipping off of it and hanging helpless in the air. He pressed the eucharist to your tongue, and you looked up at him, hoping you’d done whatever he’d been looking for. Hoping you’d pleased him. His smile was wide, smug. The wafer melted the ice, the heat of his fingers burning into your mouth, the warmth of his regard filling you.

The week after that you forced yourself to hear the words he was reading, to not fall prey to the lure of his voice. You heard him speak of the duties of the soul over the flesh, the repression and mastery over lust, and you felt shame bloom painful and sharp in your chest. You watched him carry out the rituals, the prayers, and then he kissed the pages of the Bible, as he always did. Before you’d never thought anything of it, never considered it more than a ritual like the rest, a show of devotion to God. But now, now, with your lust burning up inside of you, so hot and corrosive you could almost feel smoke when you breathed, now you watched avidly. You watched him press those full lips to the paper and wished it was your skin. You watched him bend to the pulpit and wished your bones were ink, your skin parchment, your hair thread. You wished it was you to whom he offered such adoration, and that sick twist of guilt snapped at you once more.  _He is untouchable_ , you reminded yourself.  _Sacred._

The next Sunday you knelt to pray, you bowed your head. You forced yourself to think only of restraint, of containing your desire. But when Father Aizen made his rounds, walking before the pews in the chancel, up and down the aisle, he stopped to stand before you. Inches from you. You could feel the heat of his body, the warmth beneath those fine black clothes, and it brought a flush to your cheeks. You couldn’t look up. You knew if you did you would see more than you wanted. Well, not more than you wanted. More than you needed. You looked up, and found him just as lovely from below. You cursed yourself.

The next Sunday went much the same, until it came time for you to leave. You shook his hand quickly, departed. You were halfway out the door when Mrs. Shibuya called you back.

“Just a moment, dear!” She yelled after you, and you rolled your eyes to high heaven.  _That’s another one,_  you reminded yourself before turning. You had racked up a total of seventeen disrespectful behaviors this week. You felt they were all  _deserved_ , mind. But still.

“Miss Hinamori is out sick this week, and I don’t have a replacement,” Father Aizen began, staring apologetically at you. “I’d hate to inconvenience you, but Mrs. Shibuya was just telling me you can play.”

“Not very well,” you said quietly, stepping back into the church against your own will. “I’m not nearly as good as her.”

“Nonsense!” Mrs. Shibuya said ebulliently, and you closed your eyes because you knew what was coming. “She’d love to!”

“I should really hate to inconvenience you,” he repeated earnestly, turning that soft brown gaze on you. You felt your heart twitch.  _You should say yes_ , you told yourself. _Recompense. Penance. Help him out. It’s the least you could do after all the awful things you’ve been thinking._

“Would you fill in for Miss Hinamori this week?” She asked, as though suddenly contrite, and you bit your lip. You wanted to be near him. You didn’t want to be near him. You wanted to pull him closer. You wanted to be as far away from him as possible.

“Of course, Father,” you said finally, with a fake, sad smile. “I’ll do my best.” His smile was lovely. You hated it.

Mrs. Shibuya escorted you to Momo’s cabinet of sheet music, which was about as full of notes from Toshiro as it was actual sheet music.

“Disorganized,” Mrs. Shibuya clucked.

“I think it’s sweet,” you offered shyly, picking up a few notes that had spilled over onto the ground. “It must be nice. Being loved.” Your voice was more wistful than you’d like. More telling. Luckily, she didn’t seem to hear a word.

“It is,” Mrs. Shibuya said offhandedly. “Wonderful.”

The sheet music was strange.

It wasn’t like any other piece you’d played, and even after looking it up you couldn’t make sense of it. You couldn’t sleep for dreams of him, couldn’t hear anything without hearing the wrong notes. Your hands shook, and you shook the shake away.  _You’re doing penance,_ you reminded yourself. You had no right to nervousness.

When you went to the church that Friday, your hands shook. They shook all the way up the hill. They shook, standing in the nave, walking to the cloister. Sitting on the stool.

On the keys.

You couldn’t get it right. You knew the notes in your head, but your fingers wouldn’t hit them. Wouldn’t reach that far, would reach too far. You just couldn’t get it right, and you hated it. You were doing this to make up for your mistakes, not to make more.

And again, the wrong note.

You could feel your hands shake, could feel the disappointment wafting off of him in waves. You were certain he was going to sigh and tell you he’d rather have no organist than one as incompetent as you. He’d dismiss you and the fear of that, the sudden spike of desperation that flashed through you at the thought was frightening of itself. You had to do this right. You lifted your hands once more, set them on the keys you just knew had to be the right ones, and began again. The smoothness, the worn-down wood under your fingers was soothing. It felt real to you. The notes came easily. But the worry crept up on you again.  _What if, what if, what if. What if you mess up? What if you aren’t good enough? What if you disappoint him?_

You hit the wrong note again.

Your heart stopped. Your hands raised above the keys and shook. Tears began to well in your eyes. You squeezed them shut, trying your best to lock down the sudden despair, the agony and disappointment burning in your chest. The confusion rose above. Why? Why did you care so much what he thought of you? You heard him sigh, and you knew he was going to stand up. Walk away. Tell you to go, because you weren’t good enough.

Instead, you felt his hands slowly come down over yours, soft but firm and warm. His arm looped around your shoulder, hot and solid at your back. A line of fire down your arm, pooling over the backs of your hands, your fingers where his fingers lay.

“No need to worry,” he said, and the soft edge of his voice soothed your irrational fear. “Like this,” he said, low as his mouth came closer to your ear, pressing your hands into the right positions.

“I’m sorry, Father,” you said, and even if you were confused as to why, it was true. He laughed, a brief sound, and you could hear the forgiving smile in his voice.

“No need for apologies, either,” he said, mouth brushing soft against the curve of your ear. He said it like he knew you, like he knew all of you, and it was frightening.

That was the moment you  _understood_.

“Father-” you began, but he simply hummed into your hair.

“Right hand first,” he instructed, and that smile was no longer lovely. You could feel it. It was sharp as a knife at your throat. You hated it.

You wanted to feel it more deeply.

You followed his instructions, his hands hot on yours, his arm like iron against your back. He surrounded you, like fire and smoke and feathers. Soft and deadly. Cold but burning. There was a knock at the door.

“Father?” Came a voice you didn’t recognize. Your heart stopped dead. You almost turned to look at him, but you could feel his smile stretching.

“Come in,” he said pleasantly, making no move to take his arm from around you, to lift his hands from yours. Your heart started again, and it resented him. The door creaked open and a boy with straight, silver hair came in. “Gin,” he said. “Lovely to see you again.” Not a boy, you thought, watching the way he moved over to the cabinet, hardly sparing either of you a glance. Tall, and lanky like a teenager, but the confidence of a man. Used to his own body the way a teenager wasn’t.

“Came to grab s’mthing for Hinamori. Rangiku asked,” he explained, rifling through the cabinet as though he didn’t really care what they thought. “Y’know what it’s like with her sometimes.” He picked up a record, flipped it over and made a noise of approval. “This yours?”

“Not so far as I know,” Father Aizen said, and the other man nodded. Put it down and kept flipping through the contents of the cabinet.

“For a kid she’s got good taste.” Aizen made a strangled sound like nothing you’d ever heard from him before. The whole situation was so surreal you could hardly even be ashamed of his arm around you anymore.

“She spends an awful lot of time with Hirako,” he said stiffly. “Despite his influence she remains rather cultured.”

“Some would say ‘ _because of_ ,’” Gin said, and it took you a moment to realize he was teasing Aizen.

“ _Some_  would be wrong,” he insisted firmly, and the other man snickered. He finally picked up a cassette tape, a bookmark with peach blossoms on it, and a folded up note.

“‘f you say so,” he shrugged, pocketing the cassette tape and the note. He turned, spared you a glance, and nodded at Aizen. “She’s cute,” he said, apropos of nothing, and then turned to leave. Waving one spidery hand he closed the door behind him, not another look back. As if you were just a moment in his life. “Bye!”

“Friend of yours?” You asked after a moment, still staring at the closed door.

“Sadly,” Aizen said, a wry twist to his voice. You could feel his nose in your hair and his arm tightened around your shoulders. “Where were we, hm? Page three?” You closed your eyes briefly. This was not what you had wanted.

Well,  _wanted_ yes. Needed, no.

Eventually, you were freed by choir practice. The children ran behind the vestry to change, and Father Aizen walked you out.

“You’ll do well on Sunday,” he said, and you nodded shakily.

“Farewell,” you muttered, heading quickly for the door, hoping to step out to the grass and cobbled path outside. He came up alongside you, in no rush and yet faster than you.

He stopped you before you could make it out the door, his hand warm, light but immovable at your elbow. His other hand crept up, and you closed your eyes fearfully. The touch of his hand, leading and firm under your chin, made them flutter open again. For the first time since sitting down at that organ, you looked at his face. He was smiling, still, but gentler than before, those sharp eyes shuttered and searching yours.

“Father,” you began, and his hand moved on your chin so he could place the single, soft fingertip of his thumb to your lips.

“Hush,” he said quietly, the same purring tone in his voice. He paused, smile widening a little, growing darker. “Hush, he repeated, pressing down just enough to pull your lower lip down, away from its partner.  His thumb slipped from your mouth completely, and he used it to crook your chin up just a touch more. He was silent again, and he looked at you as if he’d been given a gift. “I’ll see you on Sunday, little dove.” And with that, and one final, beatific smile, he stepped back into the church, leaving you to close the door.

_Hell._

The walk down the hill was strange, passing in jumps and flashes, as though you couldn’t focus enough to remember it all. The burst of daisies on the third turn. The lizard sunning itself on a gravestone. The path winding into the bike trail at the bottom of the hill.

There was a great deal of confusion in your head. How much of Father Aizen was a facade? How much was real? Who was he? What did he want with you? (Well, maybe you had the answer to that one and hell,  _there_  was a surprise.) But more than that, there was a relief, unkind and unwanted in your chest.  _It isn’t just me_ , you thought, astounded. _He did it on purpose. It isn’t just me. It wasn’t all me._

You lay in your bed, thinking. You did not sleep for hours. You breathed. You slept. You practiced.

Sunday came slow.

~*~

Sosuke lay back on the narrow bed, limbs tossed absently wherever they landed. He closed his eyes, running a hand loosely over them. It was very difficult sometimes, pretending to give a damn about the flock of sheep he led. They were pedestrian. Uninspired, easily led. There was no challenge, no interest. Hardly anything in this town worth caring about. He wrote his sermons, gave advice, engaged in his best efforts at seeming to be an upstanding member of the community. It was a repetitive, boring life he lived. Only occasionally was there anything bright enough to notice, anyone worth playing with. Anyone worth tempting.

 _Her_. Sitting in the pews, eyes fixed on him. That chastised, bashful flush on her face when he caught her staring. The choke in her voice when he’d addressed her. The way he could all but see her quivering with want under the power of his gaze, his voice, his touch. He sighed, smiling grimly at the thought. Kneeling, looking up at him. That demure blue dress spread around her knees, the tops of her stockings just peeking out from the hem, lace and cotton and temptation. Her face just inches from his cock and so aware of it, flushing and squirming when he stood before her. Her hair, brushed smooth and orderly down her back, her eyes wide and fearful, hopeful. Her mouth like wet silk under his fingers, her face wan and troubled whenever she thought he might frown at her. Her quiet, soft voice, thanking him, asking him,  _Father, Father, Father._  Trembling at his fingertips, hanging on his every cue, never knowing why she cared so much.

The easiest manipulations, he had found, were the ones that were never noticed. To engender feelings of inadequacy, of fear and desperation in a girl like that was easy. So shy, so quiet. It was likely that the only attention she’d ever gotten from men like him was as authority figures. Father, uncle, teacher, boss,  _priest_. She was clever enough, observant and sensitive. He could give her signs of disappointment and have her on her _knees_. It was no stretch to imagine her striving to make up for any perceived inadequacy by reading his body language, by attempting to conform to his standards, rise to his hand. So he had treated her as inadequate, and she had panicked. She had done her best to please him, had devoted herself almost too quickly to his whims. He had been surprised by her fervency earlier that day, the frustration and misery in her voice when she had apologized to him, all but admitted that she couldn’t play the piece he’d chosen.

She had cried, perfect, crystalline tears travelling down her face. It had been difficult for him to let them fall, to simply watch when he wanted _more_. The way she shook, hollowed out with a need for his approval, the way she almost sobbed when his hands touched hers. The feeling of her shoulder blades pressing into his arm, the arch of her spine, the curve of her fingers, thin under his own. For a moment it was as if he possessed her, owned her, held her heart in his mouth, seconds away from devouring it. And the taste of her, the sheen of wetness left behind where she’d sat lingered, bloomed in his mouth. Salt and acid, the arousal he’d pulled from her in the middle of a church with nothing more than his eyes and his barest touch. The shame on her face when she’d realized it wasn’t just sweat gathering between her legs, the horror when he stood before her.

The thought of her was intoxicating.

He felt heat flush in the pit of his stomach, felt a tightness stretch between his lowest ribs, a thousand images brought to mind. He let his head fall back, reaching up to his throat. His fingers were quick, well-practiced at undoing the ivory collar around his neck, tearing it from its confines in his shirt collar, tossing it over the side of the bed like the useless thing he knew it to be. Sighing, he undid the top buttons of his shirt, letting the cold air hit his rapidly warming skin. It was rare he could be brought to bear so quickly, and often it was more trouble than it was worth to pursue such desires. Too much risk of being caught, of some parishioner catching his glances, his teasing touches. Even alone, he was never off the clock. Always a face at his window, a knock at his door. Someone would notice, no matter what.  But they hadn’t. Hadn’t even noticed his frankly  _indecent_  overtures toward her. His hands began their work on the rest of his buttons, splitting the black open, leaving him looser, giving him access to the button of his pants. He unhooked it easily, slowly.

Her. He thought of her hands, trembling and frail with nerves on the keys of the organ. How cold and thin they were under his. How delicate and hesitant they’d be on his cock. He reached into his pants and grasped himself, the feeling heady after so long without. He teased himself, feeling the blood flow, the heat rise in his shaft. He sighed, arching into his hand. He thought of her touching him, stroking himself up and down with bare brushes, a lightness that was more like her imagined hand than his own. He imagined her hands on his, soft and feather-light like her hands on the goblet of wine. He imagined her mouth, hot and wet and small, stretching around the crown of his cock, her lips pulled pale and her cheeks hollowed around him. His hand moved faster, harder. Her eyes, looking up at him, afraid and eager to please, wide with the strain of taking him into her mouth, the effort of swallowing him down. The flushed slickness of her lips, painted with spit and come, the tears that would still be beading in her eyes when he slipped from her throat.

He thought of how she’d cry when he fucked her for the first time, how tight and stretched she’d feel around him. His hand grew tighter, his strokes firmer, slick with the precome flowing from his tip. He could feel the heat of her on his skin, could so easily imagine her nerves glittering with sensation under him, could all too easily see her face, twisted with discomfort and raw, harsh pleasure. His breaths came faster as he felt himself reaching his peak, his hips bucking lightly into his own grip, the image of her splayed, pinned open under him too good to resist. He could almost hear her cries, the soft, breathless sounds she’d make as he thrust into her. The whimpering as she tried in vain to flinch away from him, to escape the unbearable, overwhelming sensation. The heat and slickness of her, the twitching, soft futility of her body beneath his. The writhing, twisting wreck of her as she came at his hand, against her own will.

“ _Thank you, Father,_ ” echoed in his ears, sweet and trembling and needy, and he gasped as he came, the blank, unavoidable sensation overcoming him for a moment. For the space of a breath he could think only of her, wet and wanting and  _his_. But that passed, and he blinked it away with a small sigh. He could feel the heat of his release wet on his stomach, his hips, his hand, and he fell back in half-relief, his nerves still burning with yet-unsatiated need for her.

He would have her. No matter how long it took, how far he had to go. Sosuke wanted few things, but what he wanted he got. And he wanted her. He’d draw her in close, ruin her with his hands and mouth and cock, tear her apart until no other man could ever have her. He’d make her his, and then he’d fuck her until she was broken. Use her up and break her down, shatter her heart and soul and body.

He’d  _own_  her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. If for even half a second you think Aizen is going anywhere near Momo as anything but the priest she plays organ for in church every week, you are wrong, my friend, so wrong. Momo is safe and unfucked-with in this fic. 
> 
> UNFUCKED-WITH.
> 
> 2\. This is probably the darkest this story gets? It is all uphill from here. Two fucked-up, repressed people come together and form emotional bonds. That’s it. That’s the story. Also, everyone else is happy and whole (mostly). There’s no real conflict besides the interpersonal struggles of real life. There’s no war, no battle, no bloodshed (except whenever Kenpachi shows up because… well). There’s even a cat. It’s a pretty soft story.
> 
> 3\. Don’t worry about church girl. Aizen might think he can break her, but he’s wrong. He’s wrong about a lot of things.


	2. A Flirtation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He brushed the flower over his mouth, slow and light, barely even touching. His eyes met yours for a moment before you looked down to his mouth again. You watched him, watched the soft scrape of the petal’s edge over his lip, over and over and over again. Feather-light and tempting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tension tension tension tension tension

You played the organ that Sunday, as arranged. The night before was a tremulous mess of hope and confusion and fear, and still that nagging doubt- what if you hit the wrong notes, what if you disappoint him, what if what if what if. You tossed and turned and sighed and shivered. You thought of his dark eyes on you, the heat of his hand on your chin, his thumb soft on your lips. “ _I’ll see you again on Sunday, little dove,_ ” like a promise. Like a threat.

 The way he looked at you, curiosity and menace, attraction.  _Little dove_. You had to close your eyes, grit your teeth. All of you itched and ached and felt strange. Off-balance. Your stomach curled up, thick with feelings you’d rather not address. You tried to will it away, but all you could think of was him. It was infuriating. Eventually, you sat up, looked at the clock. Looked away. Looked back.

“Fuck it,” you said. You went to the kitchen and opened the fridge, whose one yellow-white light stared unblinkingly back at you in the darkness. You looked into it, burning the prismic brightness into your eyes. Rainbows and static danced before you. You stared harder, tried to drown out the memory of his face. It didn’t work, but it wasn’t as if you had expected it to. “You’re no help at all,” you told it. You reached in and pulled out the milk, pulled the cereal from the top of the fridge. Sat on the table and ate cold cereal at an hour of the morning so dark it was almost night. Tried not to think about Father Aizen and the burn in your chest when you caught his eye across the church.

So when your alarm went off in the next room you stood, licking your spoon, and turned it off. Stood beside your window to watch the sun rise. You dressed for church- ironed blue dress, flesh tone stockings, black shoes. Sheet music. You looked into the mirror, searching for something. Looking for a sign, maybe. Any sign. You looked the same chaste, quiet mouse of a girl you had always been. Your smile was the same when you faked it. Your eyes were the same wide, soft things they’d always pretended to be. Your face still lied about your heart, and that was good.

“I love illusions,” You muttered, pulling your hair back. “They do me such a service.” You reminded yourself to go to confession. Your list of sins was racking up pretty high these days, and you could use the forgiving. Your heart jerked for a moment, reminded of the fact that you’d be alone with Father Aizen, that you’d be telling him every dark, sinful thought you’d been having. About _him_. About his hands on your hands, his arm around you, his lips on your neck. The heat of him beside you, behind you, over you. You felt a twist of guilty arousal, a sharp pang of self-loathing. Then you remembered the feeling of his arm, real on your body, hot and possessive around your shoulders, and you wondered. The look in his eye, the knowing darkness in his voice. The closed-off blankness of his face when he knew you knew what he was doing. You  _wondered_. You sighed. You shook it away, shrugged on a sweater and picked up your keys.

The walk up the hill was long, and you only had so much time.

It was cold, this early. The grass, wet with dew, grazed cold lines of water across your calves, painting your shoes ink-black and shining in the pale light of morning. The dirt of the road dusted over them, making a sheen of mud where the dew had lain. The road turned, up and on and up again, and your mouth twisted unwillingly into a smile when you passed the daisies at the third turn, the abandoned shell of a car halfway up. They were sights that reminded you of your childhood, those early days climbing this hill, this road, this mountain of expectation and confused morality.

You hadn’t known lust then, nor pride or envy or fear. Your only sin was innocence, and you were paying for it even now. The church came into view, pale and imposing and sharply pointed on the edge of the hill, and with it the reminder of your task. Of Father Aizen. Whatever softness had entered your mood darkened at the realization that you’d be seeing him again. You wouldn’t be able to confess with the others, take sacrament- and here your knees locked for a moment, _his hand on your chin, his fingers in your mouth, his eyes, his eyes burning into you, his fingers on yours on cold metal_ \- because you would play the piece he’d chosen for you.

Play the  _part_  he’d chosen for you.

You came to the tall wooden door with trepidation and no small amount of anticipation, which bothered you. You should not anticipate what you feared, you thought. There was no sense in loving the terrors of the world, and yet.

“Miss,” Father Aizen nodded. You nodded back, avoiding his eyes, looking down. You knew if you looked up you’d be caught.

You made your way to the steps, your hand fitting smoothly around the banister, worn wood soothing under your hand. As you made your way to the balcony, you could hear the masses filing in, Father Aizen’s voice low and intimate, as though each person he spoke to commanded his full attention. You were beginning to think that was a lie.

You sat nervously, repeating the opening notes of the hymns over and over again in your head.  _Don’t forget, don’t forget, don’t forget_ , you reminded yourself.  _Don’t you dare._ You waited for Father Aizen to close the doors, and then you began. The first few notes were shaky, but the memory of his hands on yours, heated and controlling and gentle, burned the movements out of your memory and into instinct. You could almost feel his touch, the blaze of lust and fear forced out of you into nervous energy and precise motion. You played well. Better than you ever had, the force of his potential disappointment spurring you on.

You could hear his voice, even and clear, deep and soft. You could feel his hands on yours, his arm around your shoulders, and the sharpness of conflict in your chest. Why you kept coming back to it, you couldn’t say. You’d touched him before. He’d shaken your hand a thousand, thousand times, gentle and smiling after every mass. He’d given you the sacrament before, his fingers brushing your lips. He’d stood before you while he spoke, and you hadn’t thought twice about it. Why this, you wondered, gathering up the sheet music and replacing it in its folder. Why was this the touch which unraveled you? Why was this one thing so vitally important to you? Why did you want him to touch you like that again?

Why were you suddenly thinking of him as though he was something you were allowed to touch?

You stood, halfway down the cloister steps, to watch the others make their way out. Father Aizen shook each hand, flashed that false and gentle smile, said farewell to every one of them. You dragged your thumb along the edges of the paper, like you might drag a finger across the tines of a comb. Why, you wondered, unceasingly. Why? When there were only a few people left, you stepped back down to the church floor.

“You played really well,” a soft voice came from behind you, and you turned, pleasantly surprised. Though weighed down with exhaustion and sickness, Momo was still smiling. You smiled back.

“Momo! You should be in bed!” She laughed a little, which turned into a cough, and you reached out to steady her.

“I wanted to come thank you,” she sniffled. “I’m going right back, I swear. Shiro-chan wouldn’t let me come otherwise.”

“Good,” you said, handing her another tissue. “He’s doing his job, then.” She nodded.

“He’s been very nice.” She blew her nose, and behind her Mrs. Shibuya shot her a don’t get my children sick look. You glared right back at her, glad Momo couldn’t see either of you, looking down the way she was.

“As he should be,” you said, face softening when she looked up again. “You should go back soon.”

“I will,” she agreed. “I just have to put this back first.”

“Oh! I’d have left it up there if I’d known,” you said guiltily. “I could do it-” you began, but she was already moving toward the cloister steps.

“Thank you very much!” Momo said thickly, waving goodbye even as she turned. You looked past her, and caught Aizen’s eye. He was smiling again, but this one had an undercurrent of truth, something softer. You followed his gaze to Momo.

 _Momo._  A sharp stab of horror shot through you. Pretty, sweet Momo, who spent so much time in the cloisters. Aizen, who had known the set-up of the organ precisely, who had so easily gathered you into his arms on that narrow bench. Aizen, whose dark eyes and warm hands knew just how to tear you apart. Aizen, who’d had no qualms about acting that way to a girl at least ten years younger than him, a parishioner and a girl alone, and him a priest. And Momo, who was so sweet and gentle and who absolutely  _idolized_ him. Without even thinking you reached out to grab her wrist. Your grip was firm, but not hard. Fearful, but caring.

“Father Aizen,” you began, your hand firm on her wrist. “He’s kind to you?” Her face twisted in confusion. She was so sweet, you thought, with that continuous thrum of horror in the back of your mind. She was a lot like you, you realized. Smaller and younger and prettier, but like you. Was that what he saw in you? Did he have a type? Oh god, you thought, please not  _this._

“Yes, of course,” she said, tilting her head. “Father Aizen is very kind. And so gentle,” her smile was honest, unforced, and you felt a flicker of relief. Perhaps it was a coincidence. A strange trick of fate, to put the two of you where you were.

“He’s never done anything strange?” You asked, and the sharpness in your tone was probably as frightening as the question.

“No, of course not.” She frowned. “He’s very respectful.” She didn’t have to think about the answer. Didn’t even consider it. She just answered, straight-faced and straightforward. That wasn’t the face of a liar. You felt eyes on you, and you looked up to see Father Aizen watching you, mouth set flat and eyes narrowed. Disapproval, disappointment. Part of you flinched away, instinctive and hurt already, but another part of you surged forward, sharp and reprimanding.  _Don’t you dare_ , it hissed.  _Not about this_.

“Okay,” you said, your relief undoubtedly evident in your voice. “That’s good.” You let go of her, nodding. “That’s really wonderful, Momo.”

“Yes,” she said, confused still. She rubbed at her wrist and looked at you funny. “I know it is.”

“I’m glad for you,” you said, not looking back at Father Aizen. Those eyes could kill. Those eyes could judge, more heavily and more easily for being a sinner himself in the house of God.  “Very glad.” You knew if you looked at him, those brown eyes would burn right through you, crush your resolve and twist your feelings until all that was left was lust and confusion, shame and frustration and want. And you didn’t know if you could bear that again.

“Miss Hinamori,” a low voice said from behind you, and all of a sudden you could feel him, a solid line of heat and firm muscle at your back. You could have sworn he was still behind her, but in looking away he must have moved. You felt a shiver go up your spine, a flicker of kindled heat in the hollow space between your legs. You inhaled sharply, but your back straightened, bringing you even closer. His hands came down on your shoulders, blazing and strong, and while his hold on you undoubtedly looked light, you could feel the weight of his full strength, tempered, held in by a thread. “May I borrow her? And, in fact, we can take care of this,” he said, taking the sheet music before she could argue. “Go home and rest.”

“Of course, Father Aizen,” she said, looking at him with stars in her eyes. You felt a strange sort of relief that at least her belief in him wasn’t about to be crushed, that he was at least good in that one way. She smiled at him, all earnest regard and cheerful admiration. She turned, waving at you a little as she went. You could feel Aizen relax behind you, his grip tightening just enough to hold you down.

“Follow me,” he ordered, and you could do nothing but obey.

He pushed you before him, a hand pressed into the small of your back, an itch spreading up your sides, the heat of him burning into you. You moved as if possessed, something else reaching into your body and moving it for you. Your legs proceeded automatically up the steps, your mind blank and unfocused at his touch, your whole world set off of its axis. When you reached the cloister, he let you walk a space ahead of him before following you. You felt like a rabbit, a fawn, a small, soft thing caught in a trap. He stood, ramrod straight, those glasses glinting in the watery light. His face was set and still, firm. Disappointed.

“You asked Miss Hinamori if I’d ever touched her,” he said coolly, and it was more accusation than question. A spark of anger rose in you.

“Yeah, and I’m glad I did,” you said, watching his face twitch with displeasure.

“Are you?” he asked, moving forward, and you instinctively stepped backwards, the two of you moving until your back was to the wall and his chest was pressed to yours. He was hot against you, always so warm and you hated it. It burned at you, bit at you. Such a cold man to be so warm. One hand pressed flat to your waist and you inhaled sharply.

“Yes,” you grit out through your teeth, arching into his touch almost unwillingly.

“Do you really believe I’d do such a thing?” His voice was dismissive, cutting, but all you could feel was his hands on your hands, his smile sharp against your ear.

“Maybe,” you said, and the flash of emotion in his eyes was satisfying.

“Then why follow me up here? Why not scream? Why not run as far from me as possible?” He pressed in closer, one leg sliding between yours, his knee crooked just enough to unsettle, to spread you open.

“I’d hate to shatter Miss Hinamori’s image of you,” you said, hooking an ankle around his and pushing it back.  “She deserves better.” His mouth flickered, frown then smile, then back to his mask of a gentle grin.

“She does. But she’s gone now.” His other hand stroked down the outside of one of your arms.

“So is everyone else.” You wouldn’t call for help if you could, you realized with a jolt of unsettled clarity. You were enjoying this- the banter, the touch, the subtle play of feeling in his face. You liked it. It was horrifying and wrong and you liked it. You met his eyes, dark and glittering behind the thick-rimmed glasses, and you felt a splash of fear, too. It didn’t make anything better or worse.

“You shouldn’t worry. It’s something of a point of pride for me, to be able to say that I’ve never had an unwilling partner.” His hand on your arm slid down to your hand, then brushed against your thigh, and your quick twist as though to get away made him smile.

“You’re a _priest_ ,” you scoffed, shaking with tension and adrenaline. “You shouldn’t have any partners at all.” His smile widened, dark and menacing, his fingers tracing at the edge of your skirt. You flinched back, just enough to hit the wall. “Are you saying that if it weren’t for your pride you wouldn’t mind if your partner was unwilling?”

“You really do think so little of me,” he marveled, almost intrigued. He pressed another inch, and you could feel the heat of him, the hardness against your thigh, thick and as burning as the rest of his body.

“You haven’t given me much to think well of,” you said, pushing off the wall, forward just enough to purposely rub you hip over the bulge of his cock. It was a split-second of defiance, stupidity, sharpness. Spite. He laughed. He grasped you by the waist, pulled you into him, pressed the lines of his body into yours.

“And here I was thinking you liked that.” You smiled, empty and tired, and shook your head.

“I have my lines, Father. I’d prefer they not be crossed.” He leaned forward, tall enough that he could bury his face in the top of your head. Pushed a lock of hair behind your ear, lowered his mouth to your ear and spoke.

“I’ll endeavour not to breach them, then, little dove,” he hummed, teeth scraping the shell of your ear. Hands on you in places hands hadn’t ever really been.

“Father,” you began, but a loud knocking on the church door interrupted you. He pulled back, and you mourned the loss of his overwhelming warmth as much as you were relieved to be rid of it. He walked to the stairs without hesitation, made it to the top step.

“Where are those lines?” He asked, turning back, a strange look on his face. “If I was to kiss you, would I be crossing them? If I was to fuck you? Where do your lines end with me?”

“I-” You opened your mouth to respond, but the church doors opened and the two of you stared dumbly at each other for a second of incredulity.

“Father Aizen!” The voice of Mrs. Shibuya filled the church. You inwardly rolled your eyes and outwardly shared a tired look with Father Aizen. “Oh, Father, I simply cannot go on without your help!”

“Another time, then,” you said, and the flash of amusement, perhaps admiration, that crossed his face lit something bright in you. “As always,” you added, slipping past him to make your way down the staircase. The fleeting moment of contact with him was enough to shake you. He stopped you, standing above you on the staircase as you moved to escape Mrs. Shibuya, already heading for the closest available ear.

“Another time, little dove.” And then that sharp smile, the one that twisted in your stomach, that made your breath catch. “If you like, I mean. I do, after all, have my _pride_.” Your breath stuttered out, your eyes met his unblinking, and you exhaled only a single sigh of admiration.

You weren’t proud to say that you fled. You moved before he could follow, skipping some of the steps on the way down, striding across the nave. You were halfway down the hill before you stopped, bent over in the morning sun, the heat of his hand lingering on your back, the tickle of his hair on your neck like a phantom limb. You thought of his parting words.

When you got home you could have sworn his handprint was still there, burning into you like a brand.

* * *

The wedding was a surprise.

“I want you to be my Maid of Honor,” Rangiku grinned, her face lit too brightly for you to say no. You paused, thinking things over. Part-time job at the market, no family, few friends. What did you have to lose by saying yes?

“Of course,” you said, letting out your sigh. It wasn’t like you didn’t want to. But you could already see Father Aizen’s disapproving stare across the church. You had no doubt he was still upset. You would be too, if someone had all but accused you of taking advantage of a teenage girl. But you were glad you’d asked. You were _glad_ you’d asked.

“Gin should be here soon, he’s coming in from work. You two haven’t met yet, have you? He’s in forensics. I’m not sure what, honestly, he seems to float around. But he enjoys it, and that’s what matters, right?” Rangiku chattered amiably while she made another cup of tea, and you did your best to absorb the information she was trying to give you.

“No, I don’t think we’ve met,” you mused, taking the last sip in your cup. The doorbell rang and you stood to get it as she came in and sat on the couch. She placed the two tea cups with grace, and you smiled fondly as you swung open the door, not even looking to see who was outside until you’d turned back.

“You!” You half-shouted, surprised, when you opened the door to the grinning face of Father Aizen’s friend. The silver hair, increasingly disconcerting smile, hands in his pockets. He looked like he knew a secret, thousands of secrets, and among them yours. You narrowed your eyes at him. He smiled.

“Oh?” Rangiku frowned, standing up to look. She snorted. “That’s just Gin.”

“This is your fiancee?” You asked flatly. He didn’t seem upset. In fact, you could have sworn his grin grew with every word you said. It was awful.

“Yeah,” Rangiku hummed, collapsing back onto the couch. “He’s a little off-putting at first, but I swear he’s nice.”

“If you say so,” you said. You tilted your head at Gin before stepping back and gesturing him in. “Her house is your house.” You paused, frowning. “Literally, soon, I guess.”

“Already is, you wanna get technical about it,” he said, kicking off his shoes and loping over to the corner of the couch. “Ran-chan is incapable of living alone,” he informed you with no small amount of amusement, leaning down to kiss her cheek.

“Depresses me,” she agreed, tugging on his tie as if she could pull him down over her. “Sit with me?” She asked, batting her eyelashes at him.

“Naturally,” he agreed, falling back onto the couch so he was half on-top of her. She rearranged her arms around him so he fell into her lap. She kissed his forehead, and he smiled up at her, softer somehow, smaller. More real. He reached up to pinch at her sleeve, murmuring something, and she smiled down at him, shaking her head.

“Foolish man,” she muttered, but there was so much fondness, so much familiarity in those words that any harshness was long gone.

“Should I leave you two alone?” You asked, leaning against the doorframe. “It’s like you’re newlyweds already.”

“Well,” Gin said, his smile going sharp again. “We’ve already done the wedding night about a thousand times.” Rangiku rolled her eyes.

“Disgusting,” you said gleefully. “I’m going to let you do it for the thousand and first, and you can get back to me about planning later, yeah?”

“Thank you,” Rangiku said, and she was practically glowing, she looked so happy. You felt a pang of longing, but you shoved it down as you nodded at her.

“No problem,” you said with a smile. Your envy grew, watching them, so you turned away. You pushed it further down. You closed the door behind you, held the doorknob for a moment. What was it about this that pricked at you, you wondered. Why did Father Aizen’s touch do the same thing? What were you looking for?

What did you want?

* * *

The next day, the planning began. Rangiku woke you up with coffee and thirty-seven bridal magazines, chattering the whole time about how Gin had the reception planned and something about Momo not playing so she could attend, and soon you were halfway up the hill before you realized where she was taking you.

“You know the church really well, so I thought you could help me with the whole ceremony thing.”

“Of course,” you agreed, trying not to think of Father Aizen’s disappointment. You felt a lurch in your stomach, and you drowned it.“What were you thinking for flowers?”

“Well, I was thinking peonies, but they’re not in season, so.” She hopped over a particularly large rock in the middle of the path.

“Chrysanthemums?”

“Too on the nose,” she dismissed them with a wrinkle of her own nose. You reached the top of the hill and turned to look back down it.

“Wildflowers?” You suggested, looking anywhere but the church.

“Ticks!” She sang from five steps ahead. You couldn’t help but laugh. You jogged a little to catch up with her.

“Well then, Miss I-Have-An-Answer-For-Everything, what flowers have you not vetoed already?”

“Most of them,” she shrugged, coming up to the church doors. She knocked confidently, quickly. “Father! We’re here!”

“So you are,” he observed sardonically. He looked to you with an inscrutable feeling in his eyes. “Welcome, the two of you. You have free reign, I’m afraid. I’ll be writing for this week’s sermon.”

“All the better,” Rangiku assured him. You nodded unconvincingly. He cracked a smile.

“Come in, come in,” he beckoned, as though suddenly realizing he’d had you standing outside. “It’s not much warmer in here, but there are blankets if needs must.”

“Awesome,” you muttered, immediately wrapping yourself in one. His smile twitched again, but remained small.

“Indeed,” he agreed. He left you and Rangiku to your own devices, which seemed mainly to be sifting through Rangiku’s hand-delivered vases of various flowers.

“Here!” She shouted, sliding a vase across the floor to him. “You can have those!”

“Many thanks, Miss Matsumoto,” he drawled, plucking a rose from the vase. Pure white, you thought, watching him sniff it delicately. Pure white. He looked up, and noticed you looking.

He brushed the flower over his mouth, slow and light, barely even touching. His eyes met yours for a moment before you looked down to his mouth again. You watched him, watched the soft scrape of the petal’s edge over his lip, over and over and over again. Feather-light and tempting. Back and forth, back and forth, stark white on pale, plush pink.You wanted to reach out and rub your fingers over the same path, like he had done to you, your thumb on those full lips, your eyes locked on his. The veins of the flower petal mirrored to the lines on his lips, his teeth just hidden. His lips on yours. They’d be soft, you knew somehow, and warm. Everything about him was warm except for his eyes.

“White roses,” you said quietly.

“Eh?” Rangiku asked, popping up from her place under the table. She pulled a tiny candle from her hair. “What’d you say?”

“For your wedding. White roses.” You looked over to her and smiled. “They mean ‘I am worthy of you.’” You could see her contemplating them, envisioning them. She nodded slowly.

“I like it.” She stood and began to gather the other flowers, picking through them.

“I’d hoped you might,” you said, but your eyes were still on Father Aizen. “You could add some yellow crocus, too. For Gin.” You slid a vase of them across the table without looking away from him.

“What does that one mean?” She asked, plucking one from the vase.

“Mirth,” you said, looking over to share a smile. “I thought that was fitting.”

“Very. And they look nice.”

“Gold and silver,” you nudged her. “Couldn’t get any more fitting than that.”

“Shut up. Don’t think I haven’t heard that one before!” She laughed and pounced on you, pulling you out. “We’re going to go order all the white roses they have!”

“Wait, what? Who? Rangiku- No, Rangiku-” Never mind that you’d been in the church for all of two hours, she was hell-bent on her white roses. You regretted suggesting them. You were outvoted. Very outvoted, once you ran into Gin, who immediately conscripted himself and the best man, Izuru, as back-up.

“An adventure!” He and Rangiku called.

“Yay,” you and Izuru muttered, before sharing a look and following.

* * *

The rest of it was strangely hellish. Always looking over your shoulder for Father Aizen, always only half-listening, half-there. Always half in his arms, trying to understand why you wanted to be there at all. And always, he was there, watching, helping, talking to you. It was maddening. Luckily, Rangiku wasn’t much for fancy celebrations so much as celebrations in general. The wedding was ready in three weeks. You were… not.

The morning of the wedding, you were doing your best. You were helping Gin and Izuru hang garlands around the perimeter of the church. It should have been easy, but the damn garland just would not hang right. It shifted, and you shifted, and you could feel the stool tilt. You could feel your body tilt with it, your feet slip and the wind begin to move-

“Eep!” You cried, at the sudden feeling of stability and someone’s hands on your waist. You closed your eyes for a moment, regained your coherency, then looked over your shoulder.

You should’ve known. Father Aizen’s hands were hot, and how anyone else could ever match that, you couldn’t say. His fingers wrapped around your hips, firm and strong, no sign of strain at all.

“Thank you, Father,” you whispered, unsure of why you were whispering but knowing nevertheless that you felt you should.

“You’re very welcome, little dove,” he said, with a small, dark smile. His hands tightened on your waist, caressing, mapping it. Then he let go. “You’ll be alright on your own?”

“I will, thank you, Father,” you agreed. **  
**

You got down off the stool with slow steps and shaking knees, the memory of his hands on your hips- like that day that seemed so long ago- bubbling, burning, shaking around in your mind. You felt the cold absence where once other people were, and you looked around you at the church. The friends helping. The happy couple. The people they claimed as family. And you.

What did you want?

This?

_To be loved?_

Your heart lurched in your chest. You strode fiercely into the chancel, hands shaking and eyes tearing up. You leaned back against the wall, beside the door, hands pressed to your mouth, fighting in futility to keep the tears in. The door opened again, and when you turned to see Father Aizen, you actually considered flat-out screaming to help you with your feelings.

“I didn’t realize,” he began, then closed his mouth. He frowned, and you had to look away. He looked at you like a riddle to solve, a puzzle, a conundrum.

“I’m sorry,” you said, pressing the back of your hand to your mouth. “I’m sorry, Father. I just-” Your voice broke, and you could feel another wave of tears pushing at you.

“Don’t apologize,” he said flatly, reaching out to touch your elbow. You pulled away, but he pushed forward, wrapping a hand around your arm. “No. Don’t.” He pulled you closer, looking down at you with wide eyes. He reached up, brushing a tear from your cheek and licking it off his finger, wet and bitter on his tongue.

“That’s disgusting,” you muttered, and he cracked a half-smile.

“What is it?” He asked, and the complete lack of gentleness in his voice was more comforting than all the softness in the world.

“It’s nothing,” you said, crossing your arms and dislodging his grip. “Really, Father, there’s going to be a wedding in a few minutes.”

“It isn’t nothing,” he disagreed, placing his hands firmly on your shoulders. “Tell me.” There was a command in his voice, sharp and unquestionable.

“I just…” You looked out to the nave, the beauty and warmth of it. The contentment between Gin and Rangiku, the happiness Momo had already found in her life. The way everyone but you seemed to be a decent human being living a decent human life, surrounded by love and support. “I just feel so fucking alone,” you admitted, and you were afraid to look to him, to see what reaction he’d have to that statement on how pathetic you were.

“I know,” he said, and your head snapped around to look at him. He didn’t look smug or sneering, mocking or sad. He looked tired. He was gazing out through the crack of the door the same way you had, eyes distant and vague.

“Do you?” You asked, voice full of ruefulness, hope for understanding.

“I know,” he repeated, looking down at you. He stared you down for a moment before he blinked and looked back at the nave.

“How do we fix that?” You asked helplessly.

“I wish I knew,” he said quietly. “Only cure I ever found wasn’t what you would call ‘acceptable’ for a man of my profession.”

“I’m not an acceptable person,” you said, eyes hard and narrowed on him. “I’d do unacceptable things with you.”

“Would you?” He asked, and there was a kind of wistful disbelief in his voice.

“Lines, Father,” you reminded him, looking up at the filigreed stained glass ceiling. “This isn’t one of them, I don’t think.” You looked at him from the corner of your eye. “Provided you don’t plan on killing me.

“Well I certainly don’t plan on that,” he said with that same small smile, before he moved toward the door. He brushed a hand along one of your shoulders, pausing. “Your lines,” he said, looking you in the eye. “You should tell me what they are, one day.”

“One day,” you promised, falsely.

* * *

The wedding was lovely, but for you it was a blur of quick flashes, sharp moments, soft, overwhelming tears. And his eyes. Locked on you. Never moving. Never changing. Just looking at you, as though you were the only thing in the room that mattered. Reciting the vows, blessing them and their families, all the time, just looking at you. Watching you, as if fascinated or transfixed. Even when everyone else left, a mass of joyous people and tossed flower petals, you remained, like two magnets circling, two koi traveling side-by-side, two stars locked in a binary system, two tornadoes coalescing.

Two beautiful, terrible things becoming one.

You stood, made your way to stand at the altar, a single white rose in your hand. You looked down at it, then up, and he was watching. Watching the same way you’d watched him all through the ceremony. He strode forward, purposeful and powerful, and came up in front of you. His brow furrowed, his glasses glinting in the light.

“Father?” You asked, and his hands cupped your face, and he watched you, unblinking, moving. He shook his head.

“Hush,” he said.

His hands went tight around your throat, fingers curling up around your jaw, your cheeks your face, and then suddenly he was kissing you, his body pressed flush against yours, hot and fierce, and focused. You dropped the flower, your hand going slack. His mouth was hungry on yours, starved, biting and pressing, licking at the curves of your teeth and taking possession of your mouth. You moaned, opened under him, your hands scrambling to hold something as your stomach swooped out of you and your heart dropped, your head spun. It was as if you didn’t belong to yourself, but to him. You were his already, strangely, completely. You could feel his cock throbbing against your thigh, as burning hot as you remembered from before, in the cloister. His chest was warm, solid against yours, your softness betraying you to his body. You could smell roses and cedar, salt and incense. You could taste the salt, the hint of smoke in the air, the blood in his mouth. It was heaven. It was hell. He pulled back, lips wet and eyes dark, pupils blown. He panted, examining you the same way.

“You’ll do as I say?” He asked, breathless, hands still tight and possessive on your face. “Everything I say?”

“Of course, Father,” you said, smiling, your own hands wrapped for strength around his wrists. “I go where you lead.” For a moment he looked pained, but that faded to sharp, predatory lust.

“Thank you, little dove,” he said, leaning forward to kiss you again. It was just as hungry, as desperate, as heavy. You were surrounded by the scent of the rose petals crushed beneath your feet, the taste of his lips, the feeling of his body on yours, his skin under your fingers, the sound of his breathing. You were everywhere at once, and nowhere. You felt swept away, lost, overtaken.

But you didn’t feel  _alone._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #semi-sexual flower arranging #seductive waist touches #mutual admissions of aimless piercing loneliness #i'm sorry this is late and it's barely smutty #but we needed a chapter of sweet sweet CONSENT before there was to be any real smut
> 
> those were some tags I had on the chapter on tumblr and i still love them


	3. Paying on Promises

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Little dove,” he whispered, his thumbs brushing your cheeks. You pressed a kiss to his mouth again, short and sweet and wanting. The barest smirk crossed his lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The smut begins in earnest

You pulled away from the kiss with no small amount of reluctance and wistfulness. Your eyes opened, slow and unwilling, and you looked up at him with an openness, a softness you knew he could bend. He could tell you to do anything, and in that moment you would have done it. No hesitation, no doubt. His face was still close to yours, the tip of his nose brushing yours, his breath fanning warm against your mouth. 

“Little dove,” he whispered, his thumbs brushing your cheeks. You pressed a kiss to his mouth again, short and sweet and wanting. The barest smirk crossed his lips. He sighed, brushing his forehead against yours before pulling back. His arms moved out of your grip. You didn’t want to let him go, but your arms dropped, your breath came out of you in a soft sigh, and you released him. Your fingers slipped from the black cotton, reluctant and weak.

“Father,” you began, and he shook his head.

“Later,” he said, his hands still cupping your face, his eyes still narrowed. His lips were wet, smudged bright with your lipstick, parted with desire, his eyes glittering with feeling you weren’t certain you could name. He shook his head again and pulled back himself, taking a physical step away. He turned, straightening his clothes and clearing his throat. “This isn’t the time or place.”

“You’re telling me,” you murmured, crossing your arms over your chest. You watched him, the almost embarrassed, sheepish look he shot you. His eyes caught on something on the floor, and he moved forward again, a flicker of a smile on his mouth. He knelt, and your eyebrows shot up of their own volition.

“You should get to the reception,” he told you, reaching down. You felt a tugging under your shoe, and you lifted your leg to find the rose you’d dropped. He rose again with it held carefully between two fingers. “They might miss you.” He lifted your chin with one hand, the other pushing your hair behind your ears. That intense gaze watched you, blinking rarely and slowly, like a tiger watching its prey.

He tucked the rose behind your ear, his fingers deft and warm even on your flushed skin. They brushed over your cheekbone as he pulled his hand back, and you swallowed. The rose was cold, soft and hard in that way green wood is, the leaves tickling at your neck and scalp, the strange, vegetal smoothness of the stem foreign to you. The petals curved against your cheek, the corner of your eye. The thorns pricked at your soft, thin skin, like sharp reminders of his touch. You shivered. He smiled again, satisfied and smug, and turned as if to leave you.

“Wait,” you said, and when he turned back, you reached up to his face. His brow furrowed and he pulled back, but your arm hung expectantly in the air and you shot him a look. He leaned slightly forward again. You rested your fingers on the edge of his chin, letting them anchor you as you wiped the color from his mouth. It was strange and intimate, almost too close for the two of you. It was satisfying, too, doing what you’d ached to do since you saw him brush that rose over his lips. Different, though. Realer. The waxy, wet slide of lipstick on your fingertip, the buzz of his skin on yours, delicate and soft. The plush fullness of his lip under your thumb made your gut clench, your mouth dry. The warmth of his mouth sent an echo of his lips on yours skittering through your mind. You stood back, examining him. Your thumb was stained the same color as your mouth, but he looked decent again. As decent as he ever looked.

“Better?” He asked, now that he knew what you were trying to do.

“No,” you said with a half-smile. “But more decent.” His face was open, younger somehow.  He looked surprised, almost. Confused, maybe. It didn’t matter, because his face shuttered again and he nodded to you.

“Another time,” he said carefully.

“Soon,” you agreed, walking backwards a few steps. You watched him turn away, all black cloth and pale skin, and begin attending to the church. When you turned away, too, you smiled.

Another time.

_There’d be another time_.

You closed the door behind you, smile still lingering on your kiss-raw lips. You found yourself alone, and the wind was cold. The golden light from within the church spilled out over the grass, just enough to see the path. The path itself wasn’t lit, and you cursed. “Sorry,” you muttered, wincing as you looked up and nodded to God. You added another strike to your Confession list. You reached the path just fine, but when you met the first turn you stumbled, nearly going over in the dark. Your heels were low, and not too thin, but they still made walking even more difficult than it should have rightly been.

You kicked them off and carried them the rest of the way. When you got to the main streets, you scuffed the dirt off your feet on the grass of someone’s lawn and stepped back into them, making a futile attempt at looking halfway decent. You thought of the feeling of the word on your lips, not fifteen minutes ago in the warm light of the church, and your smile returned unbidden.

_He’s a priest, you fool_ , a part of you screamed.  _He’s also **willing**  and **gorgeous**_ , another part of you pointed out. You ignored them both and opened the door to the Masked Armory. It was the only place in town with anything resembling a ballroom, and Rangiku had been dead set on having a party, so you and Gin had shared a grimace and agreed to speak with the proprietor. Neither of them had been looking forward to it.

After all, Shinji Hirako was not what one would call ‘easy to speak with.’ 

* * *

It had been a relatively short conversation, spattered with banter and one-upmanship.

“What, you wanna rent my what?” He’d asked, looking away from the phone he had pressed between his ear and his shoulder. “I got it booked through ‘til the fifteenth, you wanna jump the line?”

“How much,” Gin sighed, looking down and pulling out his wallet. Shinji’s grin widened, and he opened his mouth. You clapped a hand down over Gin’s.

“No,” you said, narrowing your eyes at Shinji. You waved at him. “Who’s got it November fifth?”

“The Kuchiki are throwin’ some kinda bash. I don’t know what, and I ain’t gonna ask,” he drawled, flashing a grin and a nod at someone coming in. He put down a glass of vodka in front of Gin and lit it with a match. He looked at you for a moment, then did the same for you.

“I know someone who knows someone who can get them to reschedule,” you said, picking up your own shot glass. You nodded to Gin, who did the same. “I can do that, you’ll give it to them for the nightly rate?” Shinji considered, lighting himself a third shot glass. He nodded.

“Long as they’re all paying, I’m good,” he agreed, clinking his glass to yours.

“Deal,” you said, with a small, smug smile. The three of you toasted and then downed the alcohol. The flames licked over your nose, your lips, your tongue, but only long enough to sting. The alcohol burned more, actually, simultaneously ice-cold and acid-hot, like swallowing gasoline and breathing in winter. You’d only had hard liquor once before, when Miri Kanasaki had pushed you into doing shots at the bonfire on your twenty-first. You didn’t cough, even when all your bar-hardened compatriots sputtered and laughed. You didn’t cough then, either. You didn’t even flinch.

If there was one thing a good Catholic education taught you, it was how to hold in your feelings. Especially the unpleasant ones.

“You’re a cute one,” Shinji said, watching with admiration as you replaced the shot glass on the bar.

“She’s spoken for,” Gin had said, with that knowing smile, wide and curving. They almost looked alike, he and Shinji, if you squinted and turned your head and didn’t think too hard.

“Shame,” Shinji said, watching you. He had brown eyes, too, you thought. But softer, wiser. Less fraught with barriers and sharpness.

“Isn’t it?” Gin agreed, signing off on the fifth in Shinji’s guest book.

* * *

The party was in, if not full swing, then at least off to a decent start when you came through the door. Shinji had retreated to the speakeasy under the inn, complaining loudly the whole way, and Momo was playing a rendition of a waltz that would make Tchaikovsky cry. Rangiku and Gin were swaying on the floor, looking disgustingly happy and in love. Izuru was trying (and failing) to hold his liquor, despite Hisagi’s repeated threats to cut him off. A smile came to your face unwillingly, because for all that this scene would have made you feel abandoned and alone not an hour ago, it instead made you feel warm. Even as an observer, you felt nothing but happiness for them. And for yourself, perhaps, as you felt the scrape of thorns against the back of your ear.

“You a guest?” One of those obnoxious cousins that haunted every wedding came over to you, proffering a glass of champagne and a terrible smile.

“Maid of Honor,” you answered absently, taking the drink he offered and walking away.

You sat at a small table in the corner, watching the people pass and get drinks, grab tiny, tasteful food and ridiculous amounts of alcohol. Watching them dance and laugh and talk. You were so content in your position as observer that you didn’t notice Gin slip away, only to reappear beside you. You just turned your head, and there he was. Black suit, white shirt, silver tie. His hair was even mostly out of his face. He looked happy, if tired.

“Congratulations,” you said with a smile. He looked away as if embarrassed.

“Thanks,” he said, clearing his throat. “I mean- thanks.”

“Not very social, are you?” You snagged a new drink from a passing waiter and swapped out your old glass while you were at it. You pushed one of the glasses over to him and he took it with a grimace.

“Nah. But Ran-chan’s always been friendlier than me. Has an awful lot of friends.” He looked at you. “Doesn’t even know you that well, does she, but she asked you to be Maid of Honor.”

“Yeah,” you agreed, taking a sip of champagne. “Why’d she do that, anyway? I know Miss Ise or Momo would have been thrilled to do it.” Gin watched you for a long moment, swirling the champagne in his glass like an experienced wine drinker or a bored child.

“She thought you could use a friend,” was all he said, after a pause. “And I’m starting to think maybe you could.”

“I don’t have many friends,” you told him. You looked back over at the dance floor, where Rangiku had roped Toshiro into dancing and even Izuru was swaying and shimmying reluctantly. “I don’t have much of anyone, these days.”

“That why you and Sosuke are getting so friendly?” He asked, his smile never slipping. You narrowed your eyes at him again.

“Maybe,” you said. “But why do you care? Actually, why  _don’t_  you care? You’ve made it fairly clear you don’t give a damn what he does or doesn’t do to me.” The bitterness in your tone hit something in him, because he sat up and leaned forward, that placid smile fading into a sharp, small frown.

“Has he hurt you?” The intensity of his voice might have scared you if it didn’t comfort you so much. He was fierce, pointed, and you got the feeling that if you said ‘yes’ he might very well march right up to the church and throw Father Aizen down the hill.

“No,” you said, and the way his shoulders sank made you push back a bitter smile. “But what if he  _had_? Hm? What if he’d hurt me that day in the cloisters when you walked in?” His frown deepened, and you could almost see murder in his face.

“Then he wouldn’t be here very long,” Gin said, in a low, dark tone that spoke of something ugly and violent in him. “And they’d never find him.”

“I thought you two were friends,” you snorted, taking another sip of your drink. He shook his head slowly.

“Friendship doesn’t excuse shit like that.” His voice was still dark, something ominous and seething lurking under that still face.

“No?” You asked, sliding your glass from one hand to the other, pushing it back and forth.

“Never,” he said, and his hand wrapped loosely around your wrist, stopping you dead. His grip was incredibly light- you could break it easily, with nothing more than a twist. “You’d say, if he’d hurt you? You wouldn’t protect him?” You sighed, smiling sadly. Your other hand wrapped around his easily, and the concern in his face grew.

“That’s why she asked me.” He opened his mouth to protest, and you tightened your grip. “You thought I needed help.” Gin watched you for a long moment, then let go of you, falling back into his chair.

“I did. She didn’t. She just liked havin’ you around.” He looked over to Rangiku, a strange lightness in his face. “I just figured I should ask while the Padre ain’t here.”

“Why?” You asked, tilting your head. “The way you talk about it, it’s like he’s hurt someone before, but the way you act I don’t think he’d have made it this far if he had.” Gin looked at you, then away again. He waited a little, like he was trying to sort out his thoughts.

“Sosuke… He ain’t a nice man,” Gin said finally, resting his chin in his hand. “He ain’t a bad one, I don’t think, but he sure as hell ain’t a  _good_ one. There was a time when I wanted him dead more than anyone else in the whole damn world. I would’ve done anything to see him dead.” He looked up at you, paused. “ _Anything_ ,” he repeated. Then looked away again. “That time’s long gone, but there are some things that linger. Some things don’t change. I couldn’t say for sure if he ever hurt anyone like that, but there was always a possibility. Always a line he might cross, and it wouldn’t surprise me if you were that line.”

“Funny you should say that,” you mused. “He and I were discussing lines earlier.”

“Were you?” Gin asked thoughtfully. “Good. That’s good.”

“I hope so,” you said with a huff of laughter. He nodded, and there was a quiet moment between you, the dimmed light and the music dispelling some of the tension which had dropped over you. “He kissed me,” you said suddenly. Gin looked over to you with a raised eyebrow and that wide, wide smile. “Don’t you dare,” you warned, and his teeth flashed.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he swore, laughing. “But the next time you see him tell him I said ‘good job’, won’t you?”

“Fuck off,” you muttered, smiling against your will.

“You kiss the preacher with that mouth?” Gin asked with mock offense.

“You kiss your wife with that one,” you countered, gesturing at him. “You should be more ashamed than me.”

“Yeah,” he hummed, with a softer smile, glancing back at Rangiku. “Maybe.”

* * *

He hadn’t meant to kiss her.

It didn’t cross his mind until later, when he was sweeping up the last remnants of the ceremony, when he plucked another white rose from the ground, cold, petals velvet-soft against his fingers. He hadn’t meant to kiss her, he thought, his fist closing around the head of the flower, the petals thin and weak in his grasp.

He’d thought about it before, of course, of kissing her hard and punishingly, of pressing her to the wall and forcing her to bend to his will. Until his lips were burned into hers and her mouth knew to open to him. Until his teeth had scored permanent lines in her lips and his tongue had marked every inch of her mouth. Kissing her, he’d seen,  _fucking her_ , too. He’d imagined himself fucking her every night in his bed, with his hand around his cock and his eyes closed, hard and fast, his hips slamming into hers. Slow and torturously deep, grinding himself into her like he could stay there. He’d imagined breaking her, driving himself into her until he was the only thought in her head, until he was the only thing she knew. Until she was his in body and mind and soul.

He’d never imagined kissing her like that. Fierce, yes, hard and sharp, but never so recklessly. Never with such passion and want. He hadn’t wanted to want her, hadn’t even considered that that was a possibility, that she could have any kind of power over him. He could imagine her wanting him, could imagine himself using her, taking her. But any actual desire had never crossed his mind. He’d meant to draw things out, to wear her down until she was weeping on her knees, begging at his feet, yearning for his touch. But when she’d pulled away, those soft, wide eyes looking up at him with such naked trust and willingness, he didn’t have the heart to break it. _After all_ , he told himself,  _why be cruel when kindness served him so well?_

He brushed his fingers over his lips, the phantom of her touch burning on his face. Thin fingertips, firm and gentle, reverent and dedicated to their task. The feeling of the lipstick leaving his skin, the press of her thumb to his mouth, burning and so, so soft. Familiar.

He didn’t want her, he told himself, crushing the rose in his hand. He didn’t _. That’s not how this worked._

The scent of the petals followed him, lingered.

When he thought of her that night, when he imagined her split beneath him, weeping, gasping, moaning, the scent of the flowers rose around him. Thick enough to choke, strong enough to burn his lungs. He slept fitfully, the trace of her thumb on his lip like sense memory he couldn’t escape.

* * *

You had work the next day, and you woke with a long, frustrated groan. Champagne. Who said that was a good idea? Oh, right. You. And Rangiku. But mostly you. You reached out to fumble for the alarm only to realize that you weren’t hearing your alarm.

“Oh no.” You slid your comforter back over your head for a moment, hiding from the reality of your bad decisions. You sighed, shoved your sheets off of your body, and sat up. With a deep breath, you turned to look at your alarm clock.

7:36 AM. Your alarm hadn’t rung because it wasn’t even eight yet. You were up  _early_.

“You have got to be kidding me,” you muttered, swinging your legs over to stand. “I mean, I know I should be glad, but seriously? A whole half an hour?” You were whining, and whoever you were talking to (yourself, the furniture, God) was surely unhappy with it, but you couldn’t help feeling a little bit cheated. You only had so much time, and right about then the only thing you wanted to do with it was  _sleep_.

You got ready for work, same as every day. White polo, black pants, brush your teeth, brush your hair,  _tie your shoes or you’ll trip_.

The sun was too bright. You made a groaning noise and looked down at the ground all the way to work. Granted, it wasn’t too far, two blocks down Ash and four blocks up Main Street, and you were there, but still. It was the principle of the thing. When you opened the door, an unholy rattling greeted you, and you grinned. Kisuke Urahara always had something strange and exciting to deal with and attempt to sell to the suspicious populace.

“Apples, today?” You called over the racket, and your boss looked over at you with surprise. He’d been staring into the storeroom, where Mr. Tsukabishi was loading crates of half-white apples onto the long metal tables.

“Yes!” He said, a fan snapping out of his formerly empty hand to cover his smile. “Special apples, indeed! You’ll have to wash them well. And be very-  _Careful_!” He yelped, as Mr. Tsukabishi lowered a crate of fruit onto the table with particular force. Mr. Urahara frowned and readjusted his hat. “As I was saying,” he said more sedately, returning his attention to you. “You must be very careful not to break the skin of these apples. And if you do, don’t get the juice in your eyes or any open wounds.”

“Because they’re poisonous?” You hazarded a guess, raising your eyebrows and shooting the green-and-white fruit a suspicious glance.

“Of course not!” Mr. Urahara said jovially, waving a dismissive hand at you. “They’re a new citrus crossbreed. It would be like putting lemon juice in your mouth or your cuts, and nobody wants that!” You breathed a sigh of relief. Nobody wanted a repeat of the Turkish Cat Incident.

“Mr. Urahara,” you said, slumping a little. “You scare me.”

He just laughed.

“Now why should I do that?” He asked with a clever little smile, that fan tapping on his chin. “I’m a simple shopkeeper.”

“You have me there,” you agreed, as though that meant anything.

Cleaning the apples ( _and why did you have to do that anyway_ , you wondered) took up most of the day, as it turned out. There were a lot of them. Crate after crate, box after box, and soon the repetitive motion, the swirling of the brush and water on the skin of the fruit was hypnotic. Your thoughts drifted, your hands moving on autopilot, your lips tingling in memory of a kiss.

The brush of his thumb over your lips outside the church, the force of his hand when he pressed the eucharist to your tongue, the softness, the terrible  _warmth_  of his mouth on yours. The way his body lined up with yours, imperfect and uncomfortable but right all the same. The desperation of you in his hands, the need you felt for him. Your hands burned with it.

“Foolishness,” you hummed to yourself, snapping out of it as the water reached a rather scalding temperature. There were more important things that required your attention. Like apple-oranges. Apple-lemons? Well.  _Fruit_.

When the day was done and Mr. Urahara had waved you off with a cheery goodbye and a gift of an extraordinarily strange-smelling apple-citrus hybrid, you made your way to the edge of town. Not the dark edge of town, where a combination of socio-economic stratification and a corrupt government had allowed the poorer neighborhoods to rot, but the nicer edge of town, where Gin and Rangiku were preparing to leave for their honeymoon.

The air was crisp, the leaves were beginning to rust. Your shoes scraped dry ground when you walked. Walking down to their car, you stopped, just away from where they might have seen you. Rangiku was laughing, copper-gold hair flying in the wind, struggling to fit a suitcase into the backseat. Gin stood behind her, valiantly holding back laughter of his own, shaking his head. He said something, and she slumped forward against the car.

“This is not my fault!” She protested, still laughing. Her voice carried, and you smiled.

“Nothing ever is,” you teased her, stepping up beside Gin. He turned and flashed you a grin.

“Ran-chan is convinced she can get it in there,” he said, in a tone that might’ve been confidential if he had lowered his voice at all. Rangiku turned just enough to glare at him.

“I can do it,” she insisted. “I’d make him do it, except he’s terrible at following directions.” You shot a look at him and he shrugged innocently. You were fairly certain Gin Ichimaru had never followed a direction in his life, and not because he was bad at following them.

“He’ll follow mine,” you offered, and the betrayed, offended look he turned on you was worth what you were sure was going to be an interesting retribution. Rangiku stopped shoving and looked up at the two of you. “Well,” you said, nodding towards her. “Help your wife, old man.”

“And what are you?” He snarked, slipping past you with a twist of his nose. “Twelve?”

“Twenty-three,” you supplied cheerfully, shoving your hands in your pockets as Rangiku joined you. Gin, as it turned out, was actually halfway decent at this sort of thing, and had the suitcase in the car in under five minutes. Rangiku was smiling like the cat who found and dismembered the canary, and Gin’s permanent smile had been pushed into a slightly flatter line.

“I’m going to get the house keys and then we can go,” Rangiku said happily, squeezing Gin’s shoulder as she passed.

“She was never supposed to know I was good at anything,” he complained to you, closing the car door, and you rolled your eyes.

‘You’d probably kill for her,” you corrected him. “Like this is a big deal.”

“Yeah, but she wasn’t supposed to  _know_ ,” he said, poking you in the side.

“Stop that!” You yelped, dancing away from his moving hands, but he was faster and taller, and a few minutes later you found yourself spitting leaves out of your mouth. “Disgusting,” you remarked, glaring at him.

“Well when Sosuke asks why you taste like leaf rot, tell him it was a gift from me,” he drawled, and you scowled harder.

“Stop saying stuff like that,” you muttered, and the curious, sharp way he looked at you made you shiver.

“Stuff like what?” He asked evenly.

“Stuff like we’re  _dating_  or something.” He raised an eyebrow, and his smile grew. “We aren’t dating,” you corrected him. You looked down at the leaves under your feet. “We kissed once and he was weirdly flirtatious during mass. That’s hardly anything to base a relationship on.”

“Maybe it’s not,” Gin conceded in a way that made it sound like he wasn’t really conceding. He looked at you. “Maybe it is.”

“Found them!” Rangiku called, tossing the keys to Gin and running out to slide into the passenger seat.

“Before I go,” he said thoughtfully, “Have a present.”  He rummaged in one pocket, made a face, then tried the other. “Ah!” He pulled out something shiny and something dark. He tossed them both to you. You caught them with the edges of your fingers, something dangling, something slick and metallic. You shifted them, moving your hands so you could see. The feel of a rosary in your hands was familiar, worn wood and tight string. You looked to your other palm. The shiny thing was a condom.

“Gin!” Your voice went up to an offended, shrill squeal, more mortified schoolgirl than angry friend. He just laughed, and you glared at him, bright red. “That’s- this is-”

“Be  _safe_ ,” he said cheerily, waving. You spluttered, but before you could formulate an answer, he’d swung himself into the car and shut the door. “Bye bye!” He called behind him, and Rangiku turned around in the passenger seat to wave. You couldn’t help but smile at how completely ridiculous they were.

“I hate you,” you said, laughing a little at the sheer audacity of the thing. You sighed, looking down at the gift in your hands. “Absolutely crazy,” you muttered. “Undeniably.”

 

But you kept both the rosary and the condom, aware of their presence in your pocket the whole way home.

* * *

When you came to confession, it was long overdue. Rightfully, you should  have gone every week, but you figured lusting after the priest who would be taking your confession was an at least slightly understandable reason not to go.

Until, of course, you learned said priest felt similarly.

You still weren’t sure what you were doing. What Gin had said- both on the night of the wedding and the day after- had given you a great deal to think about. A warning and an encouragement all at once. How very Gin, you mused, half-exasperated, half-fond. Being his friend was seeming more and more like an exercise in patience. You wondered how Father Aizen had managed it for so long.

You supposed maybe you could ask now.

“Father?” You called, opening the heavy church door with no small amount of caution. It would hardly do to interrupt somebody else’s confession. After all, you didn’t usually come early on Sundays. For all you knew there could be someone else there.

“Ah, hello,” he said, head popping out from behind the vestry door. Hair mussed, glasses crooked, a look of cautious surprise on his face-  he almost looked innocent in the soft morning light. You smiled, against your own will. You closed the door gently behind you, then turned back to face him.

“I just thought maybe some honesty was necessary,” you said, with a small, sheepish smile. He returned it, smaller, and nodded toward the confessional booth. You followed nervously, your fears suddenly manifesting now that you were actually preparing to spill your guts to him. Nevertheless, you settled in the booth opposite him, glancing at the small window now and again as you heard him settle.

“How long has it been?” He asked, in a more official voice than you’d heard from him in weeks.

“You should know,” you teased him ruefully. “And I think you know why.” You were greeted with only silence, and your worry sharpened.

“I can think all I like,” he replied after a moment. “You do have to tell me some things. I’m no mind reader.”

“Aren’t you?” you asked before you could stop yourself. “You seem to know just how to play me.”

“Is that what you think I’m doing?” He asked, in a voice too careless to be anything but a lie.

“I  _know_  it’s what you’re doing,” you corrected him. You sighed, leaning your head back into the wall of the confessional. “I just want to know why. You never so much as considered touching Miss Hinamori. But you’d do all of this to me. You’d go so far as to kiss me where anyone could see. Why?”

“Why not?” He asked blankly, and you thought that perhaps that was the most honest thing he’d ever said to you.

“Fair enough,” you replied. You inhaled, exhaled, braced yourself. “Do you want to go further?” The silence dragged out and you held your breath.

“What about your lines?” You almost laughed.

“We can deal with them as they come,” you suggested. “And now we’ve gotten that out of the way, I’ll have you know I’ve got a long list of sins to recount, father. All because of this man. Older,  _maddeningly_ beautiful, terrifyingly good at reading me. He’s going to drive me to my grave, I swear.” The huff of laughter you got in response was a victory like no other, for all it’s smallness.

“Go ahead,” he said, a smile lingering in his voice.

“Lots of resentment towards my neighbors,” you sighed. “They just won’t mind their own damn business. Ooh, and the cursing. That’s another one. Lust? Absolutely the lust. A friend of mine handed me a condom and a rosary and I thought ‘I know what to do with this’ and hell, father, I even brought them with me. Because the man I’m lusting for is a man of God. That’s a prime sin if I’ve ever seen one. I stole a rose from my friend’s wedding, and it’s on my desk now. I engage in morally questionable behavior for my boss and I hardly even think about it anymore. I am, Father, a complete litany of sins.” There was a moment of held laughter, pleasant silence before he sighed.

“Well, I can only do so much. Two Hail Marys for the theft and cursing, an Our Father for the other sins.”

“And the lust?” You asked, feeling something tighten between you.

“There’s only one cure for that, little dove, and it can’t be found in a prayer book.” His voice was dark, low and thick and dark like molasses.

“Will you show me, father?” You asked, and you felt his response before you even called.

“Oh, my dear. I will show you  _everything_.” The promise in his tone was sharp, dangerous and violent, and you  _wanted_  it.

“Thank you, Father,” you said, heart pounding in a way it hadn’t since he put his arm around you.

“You are not yet absolved,” he said, and you heard him stand. “But you will be. Leave the booth.”

You stood, too, opening the door to find him waiting, black-clad and ominous in a way that made your gut clench and you jaw tight.

“Lie down on the altar,” he commanded, and something inside of you, in your bones, your breath, you blood, sang. You obeyed, and he arranged you to his satisfaction, lying flat like a corpse or a lifeless doll. He took the condom and rosary from you pocket with a half-smile. Your arms, he caught in one hand and raised them over your head.

“Father,” you began, and he knelt, pinning your wrists down on the altar. He leaned over you and the scent of cedarwood mixed with the dust of the nave and the incense burning behind you made you feel heady, dreamlike and soft under him. You inhaled the scent of him and exhaled calm, your heart slowing with a strange security. His mouth ticked up and you felt a surge of…  _something_.

“You will do as I say,” he said calmly. “Won’t you?”

“Yes, Father,” you said, relaxing into his touch. “Of course, Father.” He released you, only to loop the rosary around one wrist. He twisted it, looped it around the other, twisted, looped, and then pressed the cross at the end into your hand. His fingers were hot on your palm, and you could have sworn you felt the scrape of his fingerprints across the lines in your skin.

“Hold that,” he commanded, and you did. “If you let go, I will make this harder for you.” You nodded slowly, focused on him. Every word he said mattered. It was vital to you. Like law. Like it was writ in the Bible. He plucked the other gift from Gin off the altar, and turned away, examining it in the light. “What a sweet little sinner you are,” he remarked mildly, turning the condom over in his hand. “Coming to house of the Lord, full of lust and prepared to commit sins and heresy on this very altar, which is otherwise devoted to Him.” He turned back to you, a strange, predatory look on his face. “You ought to be  _punished_.” He stepped forward, and took your face in one hand. “Keep this between your teeth,” he commanded, slipping the condom into your mouth, clutched between your jaws, keeping your mouth shut, but drooling, wet and desperate. Uncomfortable. He smirked and leaned back again. “I assigned you a number of prayers,” he reminded you, rolling up one sleeve. “You’re going to say them for me when I tell you to.”

You nodded obediently, swallowing as much of your own spit as possible. He undid the buttons at the end of his other sleeve and began to roll that one up, too. When he was done, arms free to the elbow, he reached out and took the condom from your mouth without warning, the edges scraping the corners of your mouth. Rivers of saliva leaked from there, too, and when you made as if to wipe them away, his hand around your throat, gentle but threatening, took all the thought from you. Whatever he said, you knew. That was all that mattered.

“Start with an Our Father,” he told you, stroking a single finger up your leg, from your ankle to your calf, stopping just before the knee. You swallowed again, and began as he touched you. His hands were so hot, so soft and yet so present, so sharp on your body.

As if it belonged to him and not you.

“Our father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name,” you began, your voice steady, if low. His hands crept up your calves, stroking up and down, teasing, testing. Your voice began to shake when his hands reached your thighs. Those fingertips tracing small, maddening circles at the edge of your skirt, the soft parts on the insides of your thighs, your knees, the lightest dip under the hem of your skirt. “And forgive us our t- as we forgive, oh Father, please.” You broke off, hiding your face in your own shoulder.

“Ah,” he chastised you. “You didn’t finish.” His fingers brushed up against the line of your underwear on your thigh, and your breath caught. You clutched the cross, felt it press stark and hard into your hand. His fingers kept moving. Back and forth, in circles, gently up and down, unhurried and uncaring for your sanity.

“And forgive us our trespasses,” you spat out, as fast as you could, squeezing your eyes shut as if to shut out the sensation of his fingers on your skin, creeping closer, closer, closer- “As we forgive those- oh, who trespass against us,” he slipped a finger between the elastic and your skin, and you shuddered, trying to remember the lines to a prayer you’d known your whole life. “And lead us not into temptation-” He stroked one hot, soft fingertip up the length of your folds, teasing, barely there, and your near-silent gasp brought a vicious smile to his face. “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil,” you finally said, doing your best not to squirm away from his featherlight touch on your most sensitive, untouched places.

“ _Amen_ ,” he purred, finally extending two fingers between your folds and brushing up against your slit. He stroked them up at your half-moan, collecting the quickly gathering wetness on the pads of his fingers.

“Father,” you breathed, your hips bucking into his hand.

“Hush now,” he reminded you. “You’re being punished. Two Hail Marys,” he ordered, still stroking up and down.

“Hail Mary, full of grace,” your voice was shaking now, your knees twitching as he kept his fingers pressed up against your slit. “The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women-  _Father_ ,” you moaned, as he drove his fingers into you without warning.

“Continue,” he hummed, pressing his fingers in and pulling them out, fucking you slow and hard and mercilessly.

“Blessed art thou amongst women,” you repeated, tears beginning to bead in your eyes. “And blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. “ He spread his fingers inside of you, spreading you open, and the squelching noise they made when he pushed them back in made you writhe in shame. “Holy Mary, Mother of God,” you said, uncertain if you were praying or cursing anymore. “Pray for us sinners,” he drove into you harder, faster, alternately opening and closing the two fingers inside of you. A tear made its way down your cheek. “Now, and at the hour of our death.” He added a third finger and you sobbed. “Amen.”

“Again,” he told you, and his voice was dark with lust, your background music the sobs from your own mouth, the noises his hand pulled from you, the wet noise of your pleasure, shameful and sacrilegious in this place. Your head thrown back, your eyes almost shut, all you could see was shards of rainbow light.

“Hail mary, full of grace,” you began again, voice thick with tears and the weakness of arousal. “The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.” Three fingers, thick and blazing inside of you, the liquid they forced out spilling onto the altar, your dress, your underwear pulled aside by his wrist. “Holy Mary, Mother of God,” you sobbed, feeling something twist and burn inside of you. “Pray for us sinners,” and here your voice broke. “Now, and at the hour of our death. Amen.”

“Beg,” he told you, voice thick and harsh with his own arousal. “ _Beg me_.”

“Please, Father,” you begged, head thrown back and hands clenching around the skin-warm beads of the rosary. His fingers made slick, perverse sounds inside of you, loud and echoing in the stone church, and they shamed you as much as fueled your arousal. “ _Please_.”

“That’s it,” he said, his fingers spreading wide inside of you, brushing against all the soft parts of you that only he had ever touched. His thumb brushed quickly over your clit, and you writhed beneath him, sobbing, crying, pleading. He smiled, eyes wide and hungry for the sight of you. You could feel something in you twisting, burning. “Come for me, little dove.” It snapped, and you could feel yourself shake, your head went white and you let out a final, plaintive cry as you came. Your haze cleared in pieces. Touch first, then sound, then sight. He stood over you, undoing the buttons of your dress. Baring you to his hungry, dark eyes. Your skin was cold and damp in the crisp morning air, and your nipples pebbled under the starched fabric of your dress. He pulled it aside, opening the gap. WIth a practiced hand he reached under you, undid the clasp of your bra, and pulled your breasts easily free. Your chest was open to him, your arms still covered, your hips, the wet shame between your legs only modest to sight.

“I absolve you of your sins,” he murmured, tracing two fingers down the center of your chest, between your breasts, down your breastbone, burning like fire. Slick with your own fluid, wet with the shame he’d pulled from you.

“Thank you, Father,” you murmured, and he smiled. His hands began to lift you so you were sitting up, pulling your dress from your shoulders, sliding the sleeves down your arms. He laid you back down, and you lifted your hips so he could pull it free from your legs.

“You’ll do as I say,” he told you, almost a question, hands sliding up and down your calves. He lifted himself, straddled your hips, leaned over you. “Everything I say.”

“Yes Father,” you sighed, relaxing into the altar, softening under him. “Everything you want.”

“Well aren’t you a treat,” he purred, sliding one hand up your thigh to grasp your underwear. “Wet and squirming already.” With one long, slow movement, he slid them down your legs, leaving them twisted around your ankles before finally tugging them free. They were thrown aside, abandoned to the floor. His free hand went right back to your thigh, pushing it up until you were forced to bend your knee. “Open for me,” he ordered, in that velvet soft voice, and you had no recourse but to obey. One thigh raised up, leg opened, foot resting flat against the side of your leg  like a ballerina about to do a trick. You were his for the taking, his to arrange, and you felt exposed.

He undid his pants, pressing his palm to the swelling against his thigh. You breathed hard, your fear and anticipation mixing, sharpening your desire. He drew his cock from his underwear, giving slow strokes as he watched you. It was thick enough in his hand, but you knew how large his hands were, and the thought of it inside you filled you with both fear and want. It was flushed, the tip shiny pink and dripping. You wanted it. You didn’t want it. You wanted him.

_You wanted him._

“Am I your first?” He asked slyly, and you nodded, blinking back more tears. “My,” he drawled, something darker in his voice. His hand slid up between your breasts again to wrap lightly around your throat. “I’m honored. Such a little slut for your first time, though, aren’t you? Should I treat you like the virgin you are in body or the slut you are at heart, hm?” You shook your head helplessly. “Are you on some kind of contraceptive?” He asked, and nobody should have been able to make that question sound good, but he managed it. You nodded. “Clean bill of health, I assume?” You nodded again. “Then we’ll dispense with this,” he said, slipping the condom between the pages of the bible he’d left on the table, an arm’s length away. He pressed a sharp, possessive kiss to your neck, all teeth and suction, leaving a bright bruise, a mark. “I’ll make you mine, little dove,” he hissed, and you trembled below him.

“Whatever you wish, father,” you answered, weak and willing under his touch. He nodded, and grasped your wrists in one hand. He ducked under them, and suddenly your arms were around his neck, your bare breasts pressing against the black shirt he still wore, his cock pressing into your thigh, burning and thick. He smiled, his nose pressed into the space beside yours, those soft brown eyes hard and dark with lust. He watched your face, unblinking, as he pressed into you, watched you as your head fell back, your mouth twisted open in pain and pleasure, your eyes fluttered shut. He rested inside of you for a moment before drawing out with a slowness that dragged a breath out of you. He returned to you with a sharp jerk forward, his shirt scraping harshly over your nipples, the buttons pressing into your chest. The zipper of his pants dug into your thighs, his cock burned inside of you.

You forgot the meaning of time. With every thrust it all came easier, your arousal slicking you up once more, wet and willing for him. You began to gasp, to sigh, to shift under him, to accommodate his claim of you. His thickness inside of you, his body over yours, his careless, ungentle pace. He sped up, each thrust harder, more pointed.

“Please,” you cried, your tied hands fisting in the dark, curling softness of his hair. “Oh, god,  _please_.”

“Who are you praying to?” He asked, and you gasped when his next thrust hit a hard, immovable part of you that sang with pain. It only fueled your pleasure, and you blinked away tears. He was so hot inside of you, hot and throbbing with motion and need and blood, and it was like nothing you’d ever felt. It was all-consuming, overwhelming. He was the only thing in the world.

“ _You_ , Father,” you answered, groaning as he continued to fuck you, head landing back on the altar. “Only you. Father, please.” From here you could see the light on his face, the molten rainbow of gold and red and copper light, blue and violet and pink painting him a kaleidoscope in the morning light. He was beautiful, you thought, as his face tightened, his thrusts becoming harder, faster. Shadowed in prisms, lit by heaven’s light, as lustful and sharply flawed as any man or any angel. Merciless and harsh, unforgiving and unholy.

But beautiful.  _Terribly_  beautiful.

“Father,” you breathed, and the small, panting groan he let out when he next hilted inside of you was a sign even you could read, as limited as your experience might be. You pressed him close to you, feeling the warmth of his chest against yours through the black cotton, in his back beneath your bound hands, around his neck, where your tied arms looped. “Oh, Father, please.” His next thrust was hard enough to jab through you, sharp and painful and too much. He let out a soft sigh of a groan, and you could feel the spill of him inside of you, a burning, thick liquid heat in the pool of your stomach, the fade between your legs. He remained inside of you for a moment, and the twitch of his cock as he spilled his last in you was strange and intimate. He panted a little, breathing harder than usual into your shoulder, face pressed in beside yours so you couldn’t see it.

He pulled out slow, the friction of skin-on-skin dragging some of his seed out with him. His cock fell, dripping, hung between his still-clothed legs, and he wiped it on your thigh. Like you were just an object for his pleasure. A  _thing_  for him to fuck and then leave. He sat up, still looming over you, overtaking all other things in your life. He looked you over, flushed and debauched and deflowered, and he smiled.

“Glory be to God,” he said in a smug, teasing tone, leaning forward and running one finger through the white, weeping mess of your slit. You wriggled, moaned softly, sore already and made uncomfortable by the cold air of the church on your wet flesh. You were frosted in moisture, sweat and spit and come all over you, inside of you. He stepped easily off of the altar, as though unaffected entirely by the whole affair. He made a little noise and bent, plucking up something.

Your panties, you realized, and he smiled that same smile, firm, purposeful hands sliding them back up your trembling legs and over your dripping slit. “Lift,” he ordered, and you raised your sore hips for him. Covered now, you were less cold, but you could already feel his come leaking into the soft, cotton garment.

“You’ll have to sit through mass like that,” he noted, picking up your dress from where it lay over the top of one pew. “I hope you aren’t too uncomfortable,” he said, with a smile that told you he hoped you were.

“Of course, Father,” you said, trying to keep your still-twitching muscles from failing you. You could feel his come streaked down the inside of your thigh, dripping from your entrance, smeared wet and rapidly cooling between your legs. It was uncomfortable, and disgusting, and you could feel that pool of heat in your core reignite. _Damn you_ , you cursed yourself.  _You’ve got no shame at all. Or if you do, it only makes things worse._

He smiled at you this time, a wider, gleeful smile that smacked of smugness. It was terrifying and affirming. You wanted to kiss it off his face, to press up against him and feel him inside of you, around you, over you like you had not five minutes ago. Like some fierce, phantom thirst with no water, you wanted him. Hungered for him. You wanted to feel that euphoria every moment of every day and never leave him.

“To your seat, little dove,” he said, his grin widening.

“Yes, Father,” you agreed, slipping your feet back into the demure church shoes you’d worn every Sunday since you were eleven.  _The same year he came to town_ , part of you whispered. You sighed, and sat gingerly in your usual spot. You sent up a tiny, blasphemous prayer that Father Aizen’s seed wouldn’t leak from between your legs and leave a wet spot on your clothes in the middle of Sunday morning mass. A second later, you also sent up a prayer for mercy and forgiveness, because Lord Almighty the sins you just committed.

_Worth it_ , a part of you said, as Father Aizen began to arrange his papers on the pulpit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Gin-Church Girl friendship brings me life and joy.


	4. Confessions I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aizen plays a few games.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uhhhh so. This took me ages. Y'all actually get it here before tumblr bc the tumblr version is queued lol
> 
> also, new tags added for dubious consent, because while church girl is consenting, the lines are a little blurred sometimes as to what she is consenting to and what Aizen is actually doing. Nothing too serious, but it might be a little... uncomfortable? idk, just in case.

Mass seemed to last eternities that day. The uncomfortable sticky wetness between your thighs, sweat on your neck and back and forehead. Your hands shaking, nerves still shot from being fucked within an inch of your life on the very same altar now being laid out with the eucharist. Wine and wafers and a deep velvet runner beneath them. You almost huffed out a laugh. Just like old times, you thought wryly. His eyes flicked over to you, a look over his glasses, but the twitch of your mouth made him smile, too. You liked that. That you could make him smile. For a moment, all the world seemed wrapped up in that slight curve of his mouth.

Then Mrs. Shibuya settled in next to you, and you could feel your smile fall. His only widened, a tinge of mirth at the corner of his eyes. Despite yourself you felt a faint warmth. You quashed it. This was no romance. This was Sunday mass, and you’d just fucked the priest. Some composure was warranted.  If Mrs. Shibuya said something to you, she got no real response. An absent-minded nod. A vague ‘yes.’ The rest of the time passed in a blur- a smudge of his eyes, the flicker of the rainbowed light on the cross, the taste of wine, the brush of his voice over your skin. Your heart pounding steadily in your chest. The way your knees shook when you knelt.

You walked home in a daze, his voice barely passing your mind when he said goodbye. The faintest touch of his hand to yours was lost in a whirl of disappearing thoughts. You unlocked your door and walked to your room with no purpose, no idea behind your action. You shook the numbness away when you reached your bed, sliding your socks down, peeling your soaked, sticky underwear from the tender skin between your legs. Undoing the buttons down your chest and slipping into the shower, naked and sore and freshly deflowered. Vulnerable and tired.

The hot water washed away the time as well as the come dripping from your slit. Running your hands over your sore skin, trying to banish the cold of the altar. Trying to replace the warmth of his body over yours, his heated hands. Your skin became heavy and your fingertips pruned under the heated rush of water. You half-heartedly shut off the water. When you stumbled, soft and half-awake, back into your room, it was time to go to work. You dressed, tired but less fogged, and tried to remember what Mr. Urahara wanted you to do that day.

When you reached the shop, however, Mr. Urahara seemed to notice your distraction, and gave you the job of sweeping and wiping down the shop while Tessai ran the register and he himself did who knows what in the back. You liked the sweeping. It was repetitive and soothing, letting your mind wander as it needed to, letting you think of nothing for as long as possible. When Mr. Urahara crept from the back room to turn the sign from ‘open’ to ‘closed,’ you felt as though only a moment had passed, just as you felt it had been a thousand years.

“You seem distracted, lately,” Tessai observed as you hung up your apron.

“I’m sorry,” you sighed. “I’m sure it’ll pass. I’ll be back to normal soon.”

“Hm,” he hummed gruffly, eyeing you dubiously. “If you are not, know that I will find whoever is responsible and they will be at my mercy.”

“A terrible place to be,” you agreed fondly. “That’s very kind of you.”

“Hm,” he hummed again.

* * *

 

You had Tuesday off. Monday night you tossed and turned and fidgeted in your bed, your mind wandering, the persistent pulse between your legs keeping you awake. You stared up at the ceiling, then at the wall, then at the opposite wall. You dozed, then woke. You pressed your knees together and tried to will yourself back to sleep. You got up, ate an apple and drank a glass of water. Stood in your window watching the sun rise. You put on a dress, some shoes. No socks.

You walked up the hill to the church, the pale winter sun lighting your path with a stark light. The heavy wooden door opened smoothly under your hand, and you closed it behind you with a quiet click. When you turned, he was standing at the end of the aisle, glasses low on his nose and a bible hanging from his hand. He looked surprised. He looked pleased.

“Father Aizen,” you greeted him, and he turned to you fully, smiling.

“Little dove,” he purred. “I thought you might come.” Your cheeks flushed at the name, your teeth caught at your lip. Your core stirred, heated.

“I’m sure you did,” you acknowledged, because it could hardly be denied. You walked slowly down the aisle, meeting him at the first pew. “I suppose I should ask what you’d like me to do.” He sighed, sat gracefully in the pew, crossed his legs. Placed the bible beside him.

“Well, I should think that would be simple,” he rejoindered easily. “Undress,” he ordered, voice calm and face suddenly composed. Still, distant, removed. You reached down to the waist of your dress, pulled it up a little, shimmied it up until you could grasp the hem and pull it over your head. You dropped it to the stone floor, reached down to your back to unclasp the wire catches on your bra, shrugged that off, too. Slid your underwear down your legs, stepped out of them. Stood, bare and shivering before him. He smiled placidly, beckoned you forward, reached up to your chin. He opened his mouth, as if to speak, when there was a weighted knock on the door. A murmuring voice muffled by stone and thick wood.

“Father? Hello?” Father Aizen stood, wrapped one arm around your waist and the other over your mouth, pulling you down to sit between his legs on the floor, his chest to your back, his back to the worn wood of the pew. You were both below the windows, now, out of sight if someone could manage to see through the milky, colored glass which cast threads of green and violet, pink and blue over your bare skin. There was a shuffle of footsteps, and you made to stand.

“Anybody here?” The voice called, and Father Aizen clasped his hand over your wrist to stop you from standing up. He pulled you down again, between his thighs, back to his chest. He pressed you to him, his legs stretched out on either side of you, and the worn stone of the floor felt smooth and cool under your fingers. The heat of him behind you was distracting, and no matter how much you tried to focus on the sound of the man’s footsteps on the stone outside, the feeling of his hands on your body made you shiver.

His hand slipped down over your thigh, between your legs, and you arched back into his chest, your head fell onto his shoulder, and he was just reaching, stroking a few fingers between your folds, feeling your breathing speed up with every occasional brush over your clit. He felt the heat of you, the wetness on his hand. He curved two fingers into you, his palm resting over your clit, his other two fingers spreading you open, the air cold and electric on your skin. He pulled his fingers over the soft, thin skin inside you, and the choked noise you made, the little twitch of your hips, made him smile. He wrapped his other hand around your mouth, and the damp heat of your breath on his palm was arousing in a way he couldn’t place. You felt separate from yourself, distant. As if he’d taken possession of you and you’d given in.

"Move," he told you, voice low and soft in your ear, and you let out a muffled whine as you rolled your hips into his hand. He dragged his mouth down the side of your neck to rest his teeth in the soft flesh of the curve into your shoulder. You shuddered and moaned, the tremors, the furious spasming of you around his hand like the flicker of the candle flames before you. He could feel you letting go, loosening. The tension of everyday worry, the seriousness of your life, it fell from you, your eyes closing, your lips parting, your hips rolling in a rhythmic back and forth that stroked your ass over his cock in a way that made him breathe heavily into your skin. And quiet, so quiet, except for the slickness of you and his breath in your ear.

He bit down, sinking his teeth into your muscles, your flesh, feeling it bruise under his mouth. You moaned, recklessly loud, but there were no more footsteps, and you could. He smiled into your heated skin, moved his own hips forward to press his cock into the crevice of your ass. You inhaled sharply, his fingers moving faster, the heat of him, his chest, his hips, his cock, his hands, burning into you. "Come now, little dove," he crooned, pressing a feather-light kiss to his mark on you. "Come for me."

He stroked furiously at you, his hand rubbing against the collections of nerves in your core, in your clit, forcing you to the very edge of thought. You bucked your hips into his grip, caught between his hand and his cock and his mouth, surrounded by him, the heat of him raising a red flush on your cheeks, your chest, your stomach. He scraped a fingernail over your clit and you floated away, your body convulsing, drops of fluid collecting in his palm, between his fingers. You sighed out his name, small jerks still seizing you, and when you fell limply back against his chest, he pulled his hand from between your legs. "What a mess," he murmured, resting the wet tips of his fingers against your raw mouth. You licked at them drowsily, cleaning yourself from his skin with kitten licks and light sucks at his fingertips.

When his hand was (mostly) clean, he rolled his hips up again, could tell from the way you moved that you felt him, hot and hard against you. "I was very kind to you," he murmured, turning your head so he could look in your eyes. "Won't you reward me for my good deed?" His other hand stroked down his front until he reached his erection, watching the way your eyes dilated, the way you leaned forward when he palmed himself, squeezed and stroked through his pants. He stood, lazily, like the slow, certain crawl of a tiger. His fingers slipped down the seam, fell to your head.  "Be kind, little dove," he murmured, fisting a hand harshly in your hair. "Be kind to me." You moved forward when he tugged, and he didn't have to pull at all when you moved your face into the space between his legs, pressed a kiss to the outline of his cock, straining and heated against his thigh. He undid his pants, pulled his cock free to bob, flushed and straining in the cool air. You looked at it, then up at him, and he tugged at your hair again. You opened your mouth over the top, and the heat of you made him let out a small grunt, press you down farther until your lips were stretched around his shaft, your throat spasming helplessly around him. He kept his hand clenched around your hair, pushing you down until your face was buried between his legs. Your senses were at once perilously intense and deliriously distant. The taste of him, the feel, were both too close, too far for examination. You couldn’t think, couldn’t move. You only felt. You only gave what he asked.

Your nose pressed to the dark curls at his base, his tip buried in the hot, wet lining of your throat, and even as you choked a little, breathing heavily, unprepared for how rough he was, you can feel him getting harder, could feel the convulsions of you around his cock stimulating him, spurring him on. Precome sliding down your throat like liquid thirst, like water that never quenched but only increased the emptiness inside of you. Salt and bitterness and shame. Obedience.

He let out a small groan, both hands going to your hair, tangling in it. They fisted, tight and tugging, and he pulled you away from his cock, spit dripping from your mouth, wet and humiliating. Your face went slack, you looked almost relieved, as if you were done, but he smiled, wicked and dark, and pushed you back down, hilting himself in your mouth. You choked again, and the movement around him brought a sigh to his lips. He bucked his hips into your mouth, forcing himself as deep as he can, your eyes spilling hot tears into the hair at the base of his cock. He made short, shallow thrusts into your throat, and it hurt you, you whined and sobbed and choked again, but he didn’t care. He just kept going, and the more worked up he got, the more tightly his fingers dug into your hair. You tried to breathe around him, but it was difficult, and when you did all you could smell was him, the salt of your tears and his sweat, the heavy, thick musk of his precome at the back of your throat. You could taste it when he pulled out to thrust back in, could feel the thick slide of it against your teeth, your throat, your tongue. All you could see was his skin, his cock, the thick, soft darkness of the hair brushing your nose, your cheeks, your chin.

You could feel the thick obstruction of him in you, the heat of him, the heavy, wet hardness in your throat. It weighed you down, trapped you. His skin was soft against your tongue, but solid, and you had to keep swallowing around him so you didn’t choke on your own spit, on the fluid dripping from his tip, thin and hot. He kept moving in and out of your throat, retreating just enough to coat your tongue in the wetness flowing from him, and it was all so much, and your throat was burning, aching around him. He thrust in harder, and the skin of your neck felt thin, stretched. He could feel you choking, sputtering, the muscles of your throat convulsing around him. His hand slipped from your hair to play at your throat, to brush gently over the solid bulge of him under your skin. He skirted around feeling it, tracing lightly over it, outlining it, before he pressed his palm to it and sank his fingers into the sides of your neck. You gagged, choked, and he could feel you working furiously not to suffocate under his touch. He pressed harder, even as he slammed his cock back into your throat, forced it in deeper than was safe, pressed your face into his skin. You flushed even more, your eyes more than watering, your mouth stretched gaping wide around him. He could feel the heat of himself under your skin, could feel every thrust as he withdrew and returned, could feel the way all of you stretched to accommodate his girth. Each thrust was punishing, bruising, forcing himself into you. The wet, thick sputtering sounds you made were heavenly in his ears, the struggling breaths, the whimpering moans. He could feel you limply swallowing, trying in vain to keep the saliva in your mouth, to keep the precome flowing from his tip from choking you. Instead, the liquid flowed down your face, slick and sticky and disgusting.

He could feel himself racing towards orgasm, so he reached back up to your hair, grasped it tight and forced your mouth up and down his cock, ramming it into your throat with slow, deep thrusts, like you’re just an object. A hole for him to fuck, a thing for him to fill. He disregarded you entirely, his thrusts became wilder, disjointed. He let out a low, long groan, and he pulled out just enough to spill himself over your tongue. The pulsing, twitching feeling of his come rushing into your mouth, spilling over into your sore, painful throat, dripping from your chin, was humiliating. It was awful, and you felt used, and you felt like if someone so much as touched you, you might come again yourself. His come was hot, salty and thick and foreign in your mouth and he pulled out easily, tipped your chin up with delicate fingers. “Swallow,” he commanded. You trembled on the floor, still kneeling, swallowing his come dutifully, as he shook the last few drops into your face and tucked himself away in his pants. The hot, sticky pearls of come on your cheeks, your forehead, felt wrong and you wanted to wipe them away, but the hungry way he was looking at you made you think he wouldn’t let you.

“Stand,” he commanded you, and so you did. Your knees were weak, your throat ached. Your face was wet with so many things you didn’t want to name.

“Father,” You began, your voice a tired rasp. His hand closed over your mouth and he pulled you by your chin, his fingers like brands against your face.

“In,” he directed you, leading you into the confessional. You balked, stopped.

“But I-“ you tried to protest under his hand, but he simply pushed you in. Into his side of the confessional. “Father, I-”

“Hush,” he ordered, and you found yourself incapable of speaking. Your voice fled at his word. He sat, legs spread just enough to be comfortable. “Come here,” he said, reaching up with one graceful hand to beckon you to the bench. You moved as if in a dream, placing your hand in his own, resting one bent knee on the bench beside his thigh, standing over him like an attendant, a maid. He curled his other hand around the back of your knee, pulling it up, lifting your leg so that you relied entirely on him. Your weight fell heavy on the bench, and he slid your knee to the other side of his lap, let go of your hand to rub his thumbs uncomfortably up the soft backs of your knees.

“Wider,” he whispered, and the way his hands dragged your thighs apart let your hips fall to his, left you straddling him, mounted atop him. You felt precarious, hung over him. Your hands went to his shoulders, and his fingers dragged persistently at the inside of your knees, the soft, fragile flesh behind your kneecaps. You felt unsettled, like he was touching something that shouldn’t be touched. Like this, more than anything, was perverted, was mocking the sanctity of the place you sat. You could feel his cock, still hot, still stirring vaguely, under his clothes.

He reached between you, ran his fingertips along the swollen edges of your folds, then moved to undo his pants once more. He spread the gap, pulled his cock out, half-hard and still wet with your spit and his seed. It rubbed teasingly along the seam of you, spread the remainders of the cooling thickness of his come over you. He positioned himself under you, thumb rubbing every now and then over his head. “Down,” he ordered in a low, silk-soft voice. You sank onto him, the drag of it, the friction all the greater for his softness. He didn’t seem bothered by it, rolling his hips back and forth to force himself into you. His right hand settled on your hip, his left ran ever-so-gently up the center of you, making a line from your clit to your chin, pulling your head up to look him in the eye. He had that same strange, hungry expression on his face. “You’re going to ride me until I tell you to stop,” he said, pleasant voice unchanged by the situation. “When I tell you to come, you’ll come. You’ll make no sound, you will say nothing unless I ask it of you.” Your breath caught as he jutted his hips forwards, spearing the breath out of you. “Is that, clear, little dove?”

“Yes, Father,” you whispered, and his eyes glittered in the darkness.

“I’m glad you understood so quickly,” he praised you, both hands stroking up and down your sides, rocking you back and forth on his still-soft cock, heated and foreign in your core. “Because that door isn’t locked.” The wooden door at the other end of the aisle opened slowly, cautiously, and your heart caught in your throat. His smile widened, and his cock twitched, stirring inside of you. The footsteps at the door travelled up the nave to the confessional booth, and your heart began to pound. Despite yourself, you could feel the slickness around him, your panic and your lust conflating, breeding still more shame and arousal. The door on the other side creaked as it opened, and Father Aizen bucked his hips forward into you without so much as a sound. You clasped one hand over your own mouth to hold in your gasp, the other digging furiously into his shoulder.

“Forgive me Father, for I have sinned,” the man on the other side began, and the rushing panic in your ears intensified, Father Aizen’s reply lost on you as his dark, dark eyes gazed up at you and his hips shifted agonizingly against yours. Your world became sight and touch and nothing else. Whatever the other man was confessing didn’t matter. Whatever father Aizen was saying didn’t matter. His attention was on you, shifting and rising and falling on his cock, even when it was soft and loose in you, even when he wasn’t focused on you, even with another man not two feet away, you were fucking yourself on it. You were reduced to little more than what he asked of you, keeping yourself in suspense, tilting back and forth between coming and denying yourself, forcing yourself to be silent, forcing yourself to look into his eyes as he leaned back, as he offered advice and spiritual absolution to a man. As he fucked up into you every now and then, his eyes sharp with desire and amusement, his small smile cruel and distant. Your face twisted, your legs trembled, your nerves ached from the rub of his skin on yours, your entrance agonizingly twisted with pleasure and pain. You heard the man ask a question, and the Father’s thumbnail pressed into your clit.

“Come,” he whispered, and then replied to the man in the same pleasant, normal voice he had been using since the other man came to confess. His hand twisting over your delicate, thrumming nerves, his cock slowly hardening in you, his other hand digging into the soft swell of your ass where it sat on his thigh. He spoke elegantly, easily, and you writhed, you sobbed, you fell-

You came, your mouth open and panting against your palm, your chest shaking, wracked with silent sobs and painful, gasping breaths. You couldn’t look away from his face, the sound of his calm, even voice assigning prayers ringing in your ears. You rolled your hips forward and back, forcing him further into you, grinding closer, closer, pushing your nerves closer to him, harder against his touch, his touch painful on your clit, rasping beautifully over tired, overstimulated nerves, throwing you higher. You felt as though your body and your self were separate things, lifted away from everything, the sensations of your body too much to take. Your heart was loud in your ears, heavy in your chest, and the brush of his thumb between your legs was constant, sore,  _wonderful_. You could feel tears streaking down your cheeks, hear the solid click of the heavy wooden front door closing behind the man who’d just given confession. Father Aizen leaned up, leaned forward, to brush his nose over your skin, to drink the tears from your cheek with the same mocking gentleness he used when he was most pleased.

“That’s it, little dove,” he murmured approvingly, rubbing his thumb in painful circles over your clit. His other hand came up to tangle in your hair, pressing your face more deeply into his shoulder as you shook and whimpered and wept. “Just as I asked. You did very well.” The world spiraled down, realigning, reduced to the soothing feeling of his hand running through your hair, his finger eking slight jerks from your hips, aftershocks of pain and pleasure. The feeling of his cock, hard again and buried deeply in you. He lifted your face again, examined your cheeks and the fresh tears running down them. He smiled, and licked them away, and thrust up into you with almost malicious selfishness. He fucked into you harshly but slowly, taking the space of each full thrust to press his face in close to yours and taste the salt from your cheek. He ground into you, the burning ache of him at once painful and peaceful. It felt right, it felt draining and good and your mind was empty of everything but him. The flutter of his eyelashes on your skin, the warmth of his tongue, the stray caress of his hand on your hip, almost afterthought. He came deeply, with open eyes and a soft, exhaling moan, the briefest lapse of mastery over himself. He lifted you off his cock just a few inches, then off of it entirely, and held you there, enough to watch his come slip out of you, thick and starkly pale against his flushed skin. He watched it drip from your entrance, spill back over the dark curls at his base, pool in his tip, and his lips parted hungrily.

“Clean me with your mouth,” he ordered, and you slipped off of his lap, down to your knees so you could kneel between his thighs. His come tasted like it had before, salt and bitterness and skin, but this time there was something else, slick and acidic and it took a moment to realize that it was you. You swallowed him down obediently, your mind still fogged with pain and pleasure and the strange, deep-seated desire to obey unquestioningly. He sighed, curled his hand in your hair, and pressed you just a little closer to his base. Not so hard as before, not as forceful or uncaring. Just closer, as if he wanted as much contact as possible. When he was clean, every trace of your mixed fluids licked away and swallowed, he released you, and crooked your chin up with his hand. In a moment of deja vu, his finger swept over your bottom lip, pulled at it, wiped the last drop of come from it. “There,” he murmured. “Good as new.”

He pulled himself back into his pants, tucked himself away and righted his clothes, fixed his hair and his zipper and did his best to dull the kiss-raw red of his mouth. You dressed in silence, and the feeling of his come dripping into your underwear was at once uncomfortable and comforting. Familiar. He walked you to the door, watched you stumble down the hill on shaking, legs, your thighs wet with him.

He licked his lips and tasted you.

* * *

 

That Sunday, he watched you. He always watched you, but never before had it seemed so obvious.  _Stop,_  you wanted to scream.  _They’ll notice me. They’ll notice you. And when they do, we’ll be done for. Stop._

But you couldn’t say that without giving you both away, so you simply stared back up at him with narrowed eyes. He smiled back at you, smug and wicked and it was difficult to see any part of him you had thought was innocent, in a smile like that. Every prayer, every hymn, every reading, his eyes were fixed on you, judging, taunting,  _tempting_. You felt at once both fearful and frustrated, wanting and perplexed.

When the time for communion came, you rose from your seat on uncertain legs, knelt before him with no small amount of trepidation. A flash of heated memory hit you, looking up at him like that. His hair falling in his eyes, his cock, hot and soft and hard in your mouth, his come spilling down your throat, his hands on your hips in the confessional, poor Katsuko’s voice saying ‘amen, amen’ as she came on the Father’s cock. You were forced to blink it away, to stare resolutely up at him.

“In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,” he murmured, crossing you with a gentle hand.

Looking up, you saw something in his eyes, a mischievous spark. He tilted the goblet over your mouth, gently, gently, and then an ice-cold wash of liquid ran down your front, and you looked down to see the violet spread like blood over your dress. You could feel the wine in your mouth, dripping down your chin, still running in thin rivers down your neck and chest. It was still so cold, so cold on your skin. You could hear the flutter in the line behind you, the calls for help, for a towel, for a clean dress or shirt or something, anything. But your eyes were fixed on Father Aizen, on the smug flicker behind that worried, horrified expression.

“I’m ever so sorry,” he said fervently, shaking out his hands, letting the deep red of the wine drip off of them. “I can’t believe I made such a mistake.” He made some kind of signal to Ulquiorra, who took the goblet and set it down on the velvet runner. The wine dripping down the side, dripping down your skin, matched its shade exactly. “Come, now, to my office. I’m sure I have something that will work.” His comforting tone, the gentle brush of his hand over your back as he steered you towards his office in the vestry- they were far from comforting, and yet they carried with them a kind of safety. A knowledge of what he was offering, what he was planning to take. He was no kind shepherd, no gentle Father, but you followed him.

You had never seen his office before, but it seemed familiar nonetheless. Organized and clean, cluttered only by a stack of books on his desk, and set beside them, a bundle of black fabric, a spare pair of glasses, a belt. It smelled strongly of cedar and beeswax, the incense drifting in from the nave. You felt almost at ease, until you heard his footsteps behind you. He made his excuses to Ulquiorra, and the anticipation lingering in his voice made your skin feel tight, your muscles tense.

He closed the door, locked it. When he turned back to you, his eyes were hungry and cold.

“Father,” you began, but his lips were pressed to yours, his hand curling behind your head, threading your hair between his fingers. He licked at your lips, followed the trail of violet down your chin. His mouth was warm, wet and greedy on your skin. You gasped softly, a sound of want and release and  _relief_ , your own hand coming up to twine in his thick hair, to press his face to your jaw. His hand slipped from your head to your back, gliding in tandem with his lips and teeth and tongue. “Father,” you sighed, and the heat of his mouth swept, intoxicating and breathless, down the side of your neck, leaving small red marks where his teeth scraped your skin. When he reached your shoulder, his mouth moved to the stained fabric. An arm wrapped around the back of your waist, pulling you flush to his chest as he sucked, lapped, inhaled the wine seeping into your dress. His mouth opened, teeth scraping teasingly down your chest until they hit the stiffened, ice-cold peak of your nipple. You gasped, and his lips and teeth closed around your tender, sparking flesh. You could feel your heart between your legs, thrumming, throbbing, pulsing. You wanted. Whatever nerve endings were in the rest of your body, they shut down. Your whole body was just that, just his mouth suckling and teasing your breast through two layers of fabric, your trembling hands in his hair, his hands on your hips, the thick, beating throb between your thighs. Just a collection of pieces in his hands. Broken china, his fingers trailing up and down your fractured edges, soothing, arousing, agitating.

“Father,” you whispered again, and the last, delicate wash of his tongue over your nipple felt like a reply as he moved smoothly to your other breast. “Father-!” Your voice broke in your throat as he applied the same effort, the same dedicated hunger to the other half of your chest. His fingers clenched the back of your dress, pulling the wet fabric flat to your skin, pulling the front taut against you so he could press closer. He bent to your nipple again, and the sensation of his mouth was no more dimmed this time than it was the first. Heated and fervent, as though his thirst could be quenched only by the wine on your skin. His teeth worried the pebbled rise, scraped over the braille of your flesh. He drank you in, and you let him drain you. Then, when you were shaking and gasping and wanting in his hands, he broke away.

“Decadent,” he said hoarsely, his voice rough with want and alcohol. He smiled wolfishly, his dark hair mussed and tangled, falling in front of his eyes. He licked a drop of faded burgundy from the corner of his lips, wet with spit and wine and you, breathing evenly but heavily. You stared back at him, leaning against the desk behind you, waiting for your knees to stop shaking, for the pulse between your thighs to calm. He watched you, that wicked smile fading into his usual decorum. Tinted though, stained with the red of the wine and the feeling of his forehead pressed to your breastbone. There was something smug in it, arrogant and victorious. He pulled his hair back in place, adjusted the sit of his glasses on his nose. Straightened the white collar at his throat.

“You drink this wine all the time,” you finally managed. “It’s nothing special.” His smile widened, and he stepped forward, a hand sliding across your stomach, curling around your hip, landing on his desk.

“It tastes better from you,” he murmured into your ear, his voice almost soft, and you could smell it, sharp and sweet in the air. He pulled back, a bundle of clothes in his hand. “These should fit you.”

“Thank you, Father,” you whispered, and he nodded.

“I expect you to bring them back to me,” he said offhandedly. “You should be done with them by Tuesday, yes?” He didn’t move, his shoulder pressed to yours, the heat of him seeping through the black of his clothes and burning into you.

“Yes, Father.” He turned back to look at you, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear. You looked down, avoiding meeting his eyes.

“Good girl,” he said, running one knuckle down your cheek. When he reached your chin, he turned it up, forced you to look into his eyes. You shook. His smile flashed like a knife. He trailed his hand down your neck, resting it around the base of your throat, his fingers curling just enough, just a quick pressure before he moved to the top button of your dress. Slowly, unhurriedly, he exposed your chest, parting the blue and violet to show your shivering ribs. He slid it over your shoulders, his hands hot and unbearably soft, painfully possessive on your skin. The dress, your finest, slid stained and crumpled to the floor. He examined your body for a moment, and when he reached under your arms, hanging limply by your sides, his fingers grazed the elastic of your bra, the fine division between fabric and skin. He stepped closer to unhook it, fingers sure and careful. This, too, he slid off your shoulders, down your arms, and your nose pressed into his chest. You felt encircled, surrounded. At once both hunted and safe. His hands swept down your sides to the band of your underwear, his fingertips dancing over your hipbones, the soft flesh of your sides. This last piece of cotton and elastic fell to the floor under his hands.

You stood, your arms held up limply by your sides, bent forward as if you could hide your hips from his searching eyes. He stepped back, combing one hand through your hair. He tilted his head, moved his eyes from one side to the other.

“You are lovely, little dove,” he said quietly, twirling a lock of hair between his fingers. Examining you with cold, thoughtful eyes. “Even without your feathers.” He pulled his finger and thumb down your hair until the end of it slid from between his fingers.

“May I get dressed, Father?” You asked, your voice eerily steady despite the strange feeling in your chest, and something in his face cleared, tightened, shone victorious- and disappeared into his usual half-smile.

“You may,” he allowed, turning back to the door. You unfolded the clothes he’d handed you, the ones he’d had set aside on his desk, just waiting for you. The ones he’d chosen for you. The shirt was one of his usual blacks, worn and clean. You worried for a moment about your chest, but his own shoulders were broad enough to make up the difference, and it closed loosely over your breasts. Though he faced the door, you could see Father Aizen turn, just a touch, looking over his shoulder at you. You slid on a pair of his trousers, the seam rubbing uncomfortably over the wet, soft folds at your core, still heated from his touches earlier. You slipped your feet back into your shoes, staining your feet a faint, bloody violet. He turned completely, eyes travelling carefully over your shuttered face, the way your arms crossed over your chest, the bruise-like stains on your ankles. “Lovely, indeed,” he murmured admiringly. He opened the door for you, offering you no choice but to leave your clothes on his floor.

You sat through the rest of mass shaking, and Mrs. Shibuya kept glancing at you as if it was the cold chilling you to the bone. It wasn’t, though, the thick, warm black of Father Aizen’s clothes wrapping you in a strange softness, fuzzy around the edges, as if the world itself was distant. You didn’t remember anything else, not the strange, weighing look he’d given you as you left the church, not the way you tripped when you stood from the pew. Not going home and taking a shower so hot your skin turned red and tender. Not slipping his shirt on again, laying down on your bed with your nose buried in the collar. Time slowly came back to you. You looked out the window beside your bed, staring at the soft copper light of the windows of the other houses. The night was creeping in, turning blue to black. The phone was ringing. You knew who was calling, and you pulled your knees in close to your chest, resting your face on them.

The phone rang and rang and _rang and rang and rang and rang-_

“Shut up,” you said to the phone, your arms curled, shaking around your knees. “I don’t want to hear you.” There was the click of the voicemail, the muffled, crumbling sound of breath against the line.

“ _Hey, sweetheart, it’s me_.” Your mother’s voice was tinny, lilting turned to warped cheerfulness over the tape. Like a cue, your eyes began to tear up. Your hands shook harder, and you knotted them more tightly together to hold them steady. “ _I know you don’t want to talk to me, but I’m not going to stop calling until you answer. I won’t give up._ ” She sounded happy. She sounded whole.

“Go away,” you whispered raggedly, your voice cracking and shuddering in your chest. “Go _away._ ” The message ended.

The phone rang.

And  _rang_.

And-

You pressed your face into your knees and cried.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Almost seven thousand words of almost pure smut. FUN.


	5. Trespasses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lines are crossed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the chapter where the dubious consent warning really kicks in. 
> 
> Again, consent is dubious by function of the fact that Aizen doesn't always ask her whether she wants to do something, and they don't have any sort of safeword. There's nothing I'd call outright non-consensual, but it's definitely dubious because of those particular aspects of the situation.

The birds were singing, thin and ominous, when you woke the next morning. You could smell the wind, feel it cold on your feet, your face, your hands. A persistent, heavy chill. It was painful, but something in you wanted to cling to the cold, turn your face into it and let yourself freeze solid, heavy as you already felt. Weighed down with frost and silence. You didn’t, though, curled more tightly into yourself, took stock of your body’s response to the action. You were stiff and sore, your throat still raw, thighs aching from moving atop Father Aizen in the confessional. Your core felt tender, painfully worn. It hurt to move, hurt to breathe, but you knew that wouldn’t fade any time soon. A part of you didn’t want it to, wanted to cling to that pain the same way you wanted to freeze. Wanted the world to simply take you and do whatever it liked with you.

You swallowed, blinked tired eyelids. The tear tracks on your cheeks had dried, crinkling on your skin as you rubbed the sleep from your face and rolled gingerly onto your back. Your spine cracked, realigned. Your muscles relaxed, and you melted back, softened just enough to move. You sat up slowly, and the vague buzzing at the back of your head ached in a way that wasn’t fully physical. Standing was a trial, but once you’d done it, half the pain washed away, and your legs didn’t tremble as much as you expected them to. His shirt brushed soft at the middle of your thighs, something novel and pleasing about wearing it and nothing else. You padded over to the phone, slow and still murky with sleep. The message light blinked, so you tapped it, and regretted it instantly. There were thirty-four messages on your answering machine. You listened to the first few, the cheer and vacant bubbliness never waning. Your mother sounded happy, at least. Hopeful. You wished you felt the same.

“Hey sweetheart-”

“We’re having a lovely time-”

“You should pick up, because-”

You deleted them all and sighed, hunching your shoulders and padding back to your bed. You hated yourself for it, but you were glad you hadn't listened to every message. It was better that way. You were still half-asleep, ready to drop back to unconsciousness at any given moment, and your bed welcomed you. You buried your face in the collar of the black shirt and breathed it in. Faint cedar, the particular incense that crept into his office through the crack of the door, the suggestion of your own scent caught up in it, too. Father Aizen’s shirt was perversely comforting, warm and soft and smelling of him, sleeves long enough to hide your hands. It was given for some ulterior motive, you were certain, some manipulative, nefarious purpose that you couldn’t imagine, but you liked having it nevertheless. It was comfortable, soft on your aching body like nothing else you owned.

You didn’t want to take it off.

You had to clean it, you knew, take it back to him and let go of it. Tomorrow was Tuesday, and he wanted it on Tuesday. You inhaled deeply, savoring the opportunity to breathe him in uninterrupted, to sink into the comfort he brought you without having to confront the pain of it, too. You curled into yourself, lay motionless and slow-breathing on your bed for a time, letting moments pass into minutes pass into hours.

Taking it off felt like losing a second skin.

* * *

 

Sosuke woke to the sun in his eyes and the scent of wine pervading his room. Blinking lazily, breathing slowly, he turned his face into the light. The blue dress hung on a coat hook above his window. The light was filtered through the soft blue fabric, the red-violet stains that bled through. He reached out a hand to brush against it, something about it piquing a strange kind of possessiveness in him. It was thin, worn with wear and time and clearly beloved by the girl he’d taken it from.

He fisted his hand in it, released it, then pulled it easily from the hook. He rolled onto his back again, held it up to his face, taking deep breaths of wine and incense and heavy, strong white rose. He couldn’t tell if his own mind had covered her in the scent or if she simply carried it with her, but it bloomed from her skin every time he touched her. Each stroke of his hand like crushing flower petals. He took a draw of her scent, the edge of his mingling with it. It burned in him, a low, aching heat in his veins, his lungs, his cock, stirring idly under the folds of fabric. He let his head fall back, pressed the dress to his nose with intensity, his hand creeping down his stomach, playing softly on his hips, rubbing over the steadily growing bulge in his underwear. He could feel the light weight of the dress even through the fabric, and his spine arched, his hips jutted up at just the thought. He palmed himself, stroking his thumb along the curve, straightening more and more with each second.

He could smell the sharpness of the wine, even when the handful of fabric in his hand was untouched blue. He could smell faint incense from all the days she’d worn it into his church- marked by him, his own claim sunk into it after years of attendance. He could smell her, and just on the edge, himself, and as precome began to wet his fingers where they brushed up and down his shaft, the need to intensify that claim grew stronger. His fingers pressed it more closely to his nose, his mouth, as if he half-wanted to devour it.

He drank her in, opened his mouth and let the fabric fill the space. He tasted her on it, delicate and persistent and heady. Intoxicating. He could feel his breaths growing shallower and wrapped his hand more fully around his cock. She was getting bolder, under his hand, less shy, and he imagined the dark softness in her eyes as she stroked him with those shaking, cold hands. She had been so obedient, so good for him. So willing and soft and easy. He could ask anything of her. He wouldn’t even need to ask, the way she trusted him. He sighed at the thought, taking himself in hand, a solid stroke up, and the liquid between his fingers brushed over her dress, sank in and stained the threads like oil, like water. He wiped his hand on the fabric, swept the scent of him into her finest dress. He breathed in fits, his lungs expelling more air than they took in, shortening his life breath by breath, moment by moment. He stroked himself harder and harder, faster and more violently, thinking only of her, filling himself with the taste of wine and white roses and the compression of his lungs. Further and further he went, until he felt a fracture in his bones, his cock, his chest.

His mind went blank, staticky and soft, and he could feel himself begin to come into the blue fabric with a spasm of his chest, a last gasp of air attempting to flutter in and out in futility. He felt the seed spurt from his cock in fitful bursts. It landed thick and sticky on the violet cloth draped over his straining shaft, the heat of him intensified by the lack of air and the deep heat of the come laying wet on his flushed skin. He held the fabric over his nose and mouth just a moment longer, fingers twitching, grasping, before pulling the dress away from his face, swiping it down his chest, dragging it through the droplets and pools of white on his still-heaving and fitful stomach.

He let that last breath go, something like a small, breathy sigh peeling away from his lips in an exhale, as his softening cock dripped thick seed onto blue. It was disgusting, in a way, but the fierce need had abated. He looked down, watching his heated shaft dribble transparent liquid, still a choked red-violet with blood and lack of air. He wiped his cock clean, smeared his spend into the dress, stained it and ruined it irreparably, made it his in a way it hadn’t been before. He pressed the collar to his nose, and though it remained blue, untouched by wine or come, he could smell both, the sharp bitterness bleeding into rich rose petals, sex and alcohol and her like some accusing melange of his greatest vices strewn into her dress.

He breathed it in, over and over again, until it smelled like nothing.

* * *

 

You walked up the hill that Tuesday, trepidation filling your stomach in the fading copper of sunset, feeling the chill of a winter night set into your skin. The dying wildflowers cracked under your feet and dried leaves scuttled across your path. You hardly heard them over the sound of your own breathing, the thundering thoughts in your mind. The memory of his skin on yours, the scent of cedar and sweat and incense, holy water and wine and so _much_  you couldn’t gather it all into any one memory but instead fell into them all at once. The walk to the top was a rush of feelings, sensations, and when your hand reached that old wooden door, you had to stop and wonder if it was real.

You touched it again, placed your palm flat to it, and it was solid, once warm but now cooling in the fade of November night. You sighed, relieved, and pushed gently, felt it give and swing inwards.

“Father,” you called, his clothes draped over one arm. “Father Aizen?” There was no response, no all-knowing grin peeking at you from the far end of the aisle, so you made your way down on your own. You forgot, sometimes, in the rush of his touch, in the burn of your own want, that this was a place of secrets anyway, a place of communion with the divine, of solemnity and ecstasy and hope. You forgot that it was more than your own private testing ground. But now, empty and quiet and still smelling so strongly of flame and wax, incense and the mineral shock of holy water- now it was a thing removed from you. A place of its own, a place you had no claim to or reason to be in. A place you shouldn’t, perhaps, be. You stopped at the end of the aisle, goosebumps rising on your skin at the sight of the altar, cold stone a memory on your skin. You looked up at the Madonna, the golden glow radiating from her face. Beatific, calm. She looked pure, unburdened by darkness. So unlike you, and your eyes burned shamefully, against your will. Your own mother’s voice flew through your head, we’re having a lovely time, and you felt your breath come in shorter and shorter, sharper and-

“Little dove,” his voice called you, pulled you back into yourself with warm threads, welcoming and soft. You turned, and you could feel your heart beating fiercely in your chest. He stood in the door of his office, limned in light, his face calm, serious, a touch of something at the narrowing of his eyes- like worry, or perhaps suspicion. He held a thick book in one arm, but he held up the other as if to offer it to you, and your heart burned, it ached for that to be an offer. You swallowed, swayed, began walking to him with perhaps more desperation than was strictly necessary. When you’d come close enough, his arm furled around your shoulders, warm and solid and comforting. As he had when he’d taught you the piece for the organ, and tucked into his side you felt safe, safe and afraid and ashamed and grateful, and there was so much emotion in you you couldn’t pick out any one if you tried. He led you that way, pulled you smoothly into his office. “You’re early,” he commented, in so even a tone you didn’t know what he meant by it. “I wasn’t expecting you so soon, but I’m glad to find you here.”

“Are you?” You asked, before you could stop yourself, your voice coming free of your throat with no concern for how you sounded. His arm pulled free of your shoulders easily, grazing lightly over your back as he turned to face you. The expression on his face was softer than you’d expected, assessing and curious, but not angry. Not annoyed. It disappeared, a moment later, washed away by his usual half-smile, his placid, emotionless eyes.

“I enjoy your little visits greatly,” he purred, crooking up your chin with one knuckle. “You’re a welcome guest here.” You met his gaze, and though you could see nothing there, it was a concentrated nothing. A purposeful nothing. You held his clothes more tightly to your chest with one hand, and with the other reached up to brush over his cheekbone, his jaw. Just a touch, soft and hesitant on his face. His smile hardened, as if keeping it up had suddenly become more difficult.

“I’d like to be,” you admitted quietly, never looking away from his eyes. His hand left your chin to catch your wrist, bring it back down. He did not look away.

“I see you did as I asked,” he said, and you could only hold up the dark fabric reluctantly. He took it from you, finally breaking the thread to smile fondly at the clothes you’d returned. “You cleaned them, too. How kind.” He walked around his desk to lay them on a shelf by the milk-glass window, opaque enough to obscure everything but the blue light of the evening, the darkness outside. He looked through it for a moment, as if he could see something, then back at you. “Sit down, little dove. You’ll feel better.”

You sat, obligingly. The chair creaked, but didn’t shake. He continued to look out the window, and you took the opportunity to examine his office in more detail. You hadn’t had either the time nor the presence of mind to do it the last time you had been there, but somehow you had been granted both this time around. The ceiling was high- not as high as the church, but high nonetheless, crossed over with rafters, shadowed where the light of Father Aizen’s lamps couldn’t reach. There were bookshelves lining the walls, and the desk sat in the center of the room as opposed to flat against a wall.

It all smelled deeply of cedar, and you wondered, faintly, if it was him or his furniture that spread the scent. Across from you was another chair, pushed out from under, as though he’d stood up when he heard you coming. As if you’d startled him, somehow. There was a heavy glass, half-empty, of some dark alcohol on his side of the desk, ice melting lazily into frozen sea-glass. You folded your hands in your lap. He turned away from the window, nodding slowly, and walked the few paces to the table, closing his hand around the wide glass he’d likely been nursing before you came. He took a slow, even sip, his eyes impenetrable and lovely, measuring you, sizing you up.

“Have a drink with me,” he said, and there was a glittering anticipation in his dark eyes. His fingertips caressed the sides of the glass, stroked it with so gentle a touch that you yearned to feel it on your own skin. You wanted to decline.

“Okay,” you said softly. He smiled at you, an approving one, smaller and lighter than his usual dark smirk, and you returned it with a small, nervous smile of your own. Something in you had been knocked loose after last time, after his hands clutching you, his mouth hot and hungry on your skin, your dress, your neck. Something had shaken out of you, made you soft and small and foolish, and his approval eased its anxiousness. He moved, leaving his glass where it was, and when he crossed behind you he reached out, his hand brushed comfortingly over your shoulder as he passed. The shaking thing settled, sighed, and you leaned into his touch as if you could soak it up. But his hand lifted, and he turned away, to a cabinet behind you which you hadn’t noticed before and were too tired to turn and see. There was a click, a scrape of glass-on-wood, a soft hum, and then the click again. The sound of liquid sloshing into a new vessel. The heavy sound of a full bottle of something being placed upon the desk before you.

He placed a glass before you, full to the brim with soft purple-black-red, and the scent of wine filled your nose, your mouth, stung your eyes. The ghost of his lips on your skin made you shiver. You couldn’t tear your eyes from it, blood-dark and sweet. You remembered the way it stained your chest, your stomach, your legs, in long, trickling stripes and splashes of bruise-violet. There were still patches of your skin tinted with it, faded and soft. You remembered the scent of his hair as he sucked it from your shoulder, your breast, the press of his forehead to your chest. You remembered feeling soft and wet and warm and  _alive_  in his hands.

“Thank you, Father,” you said, and you knew your voice was quiet. He settled in the chair across from you, that strange half-smile dancing on his mouth, his eyes narrowed and fixed on you. His fingers trailed up and down the side of his glass, and again you fought the urge to reach out for their touch. You lifted your glass and sighed. Communion wine, sacramental wine. It felt strange to truly drink it after so many years taking just one sip, one mouthful of blood.

“It’s not very good, is it?” He asked casually, taking a sip of his own drink. He made a moue of distaste, and sighed himself. “Granted, nothing in that cabinet is.”

“Not your choices?” You asked shyly, and he looked up at you, something rueful in his face.

“Not at all. My predecessor had… unfortunate taste. He chose everything in that cabinet according to it. I don’t think he meant for me to suffer as well, but alas.” He made a face and took another sip. “He died before he finished his own stock.”

“A trial, I’m sure,” you sympathized dryly, and he raised his glass in salute. You liked talking to him, you found. You hadn’t had many real conversations, and this one was… nice. In fact, when you looked down, you hadn’t even noticed how close you had come to finishing your drink.

“Another?” He asked, standing. You nodded, and he walked with slow steps to the cabinet behind you. You turned, this time, more at ease, loosened a little by the wine, and you watched with interest as he debated over which carafe to take down. His shirt tightened over his back when he reached up, and for a moment you understood all those teenage girls who sighed and whispered in your classes in your high school. There was something immensely pleasant about a man unaware of his own appeal. Or, you reflected with a grimace, a man who was usually aware unconscious of it for once. He made a pleased little noise when he found something, and turned back to you. “This should be less… Unfortunate,” he told you, pouring another glass of wine. This one was softer, more red than violet, and it tasted slightly less like perfume and vinegar.

“I’m beginning to get concerned for your tongue, Father,” you coughed, and the half-smile that brought to his face was practically warm in comparison to his usual smirk. “‘Less unfortunate’ indeed, but at what cost?”

“Everything comes at a cost,” he murmured, and something in you whispered that he didn’t mean wine anymore.

He didn’t stop refilling your glass from the carafe on the table, and the evening faded into darkness, the day faded into night, and you grew soft-edged in the light. His face relaxed, all the hard edges smoothed away with alcohol and time, intimacy of thought. Your limbs grew pliant and lazy, your heart beat slowly, and you watched him talk and move and drink with a kind of admiration that quickly became want. His speech lulled into comfortable silence,

You stood, something fluid and easy in your movements, and walked around the desk to him. He looked up at you curiously, calculatingly, and you set your glass down beside where his hand rested with his own. He looked up at you, and you reached up to your waist, pulled your shirt over your head. That same smirk rose to his face, placid and amused, and you undid your skirt without a second thought. You didn’t consider the time or place, whether or not this was a good idea. You simply did as you wanted. You let your body carry out its own will, and moved to rest a knee beside his on his chair, to rise over him. He cocked one eyebrow, let you do as you wished, and you moved your other knee so you sat above him, perched over him.

“You’re being rather forward today,” he observed coolly, amusement writ in his voice, in the steadying touch of his hand on your hip, the other still holding his own glass up and away so you wouldn’t knock it from his grip. You felt your weight settle over his hips, felt the stir of his cock against the inside of your thigh, and you leaned forward to kiss him. He tilted his head into your grip, then pulled away, pressing the rim of his glass to your lips where his had been but a moment ago. “Try it,” he said, and it sounded as if he was holding his breath. Your lips parted, and he tilted his glass against your mouth. Whatever he had been drinking, it wasn’t wine. It was dark, like gold, and tasted of mist and sharp glass. Whiskey, maybe. Scotch. You didn’t know, you didn’t care. You drank until he pulled his glass away, swallowing obediently, licking your lips. His eyes were soft, as you imagined yours were, the alcohol tugging the both of you away from your harder shells and into softer, more vulnerable positions.

“Father,” you said, and it was a question more than anything. He set his glass down, trailed glass-cold fingers up the bare stretch of your back You shivered, arched into his touch. His eyes wandered from your face to your neck, your shoulders, and you watched his mouth open, eyes grow hungry at the sight of the faint violet still mapping its way over your shoulder, your collarbone, your breasts. One hand remained on your hip, but the other made its way down your back to your waist, and your hips bucked forward at the softness of his touch. You weren’t used to being touched there, weren’t used to the vulnerable parts of you being unfurled, uncovered. The heat of his fingers curling over your skin mirrored the press of his mouth on your neck.

He dragged his teeth over the last, faint veneer of violet on your skin, traced it’s outline with his mouth, down, down, down to your breast, and it was deja vu but  _better_ , feeling his hair brush your ribs, his mouth on your nipple. He drew lazy, warm circles with his fingers, and the heat of him pressed against the cold at your back burned. He brought his mouth up to yours, biting deep into the plush weakness of your bottom lip. He lifted you, pushed you up to your knees again as he undid his pants, one hand still holding you, firm like iron and you could taste blood on your lips, could see red on his mouth when he pulled away to sigh as you sank down onto his cock. Everything was flashes, flickers, slow moments that flashed between each other. One moment you were rocking back and forth above him, sighing into the air between your mouths, the next he was pressing a thick, cool leather belt into your hand and murmuring, “Around my neck, little dove.”

Your mind stalled, your heart pulsed in your mouth, but you felt compelled to obey. The belt was inflexible, hard, and you grimaced at the thought of it around your neck, around his. It was difficult, and you pulled it around the back of his neck. He tilted his head back, allowing you to slide the end into the buckle, to pull it loosely about his neck. He shifted his hips, sighing, and his shoulders relaxed even as you felt him stiffen even more inside you. “Tighter,” he asked, and you let it slip closer, let it go flat to his throat. His cheeks flushed, his lips parted, and he whispered, “Tighter,” as his head lolled lazily back to cinch it further. You pulled, and you could see his pulse throbbing in the artery on the side of his neck, could see the blood forcing itself past the barrier you’d made.

“Tighter,” he said, rocking his hips forward, thrusting upwards, and as you rolled your own hips to meet him, you let the belt pull just enough that you could hear his gasp choked in his throat. His hands were colder, clenching on your hips as he sighed and hissed and fucked you. His lips were violet, like yours, and you kissed them, felt them cool even as yours attempted to warm them. He didn’t breathe until you pulled away, rasped in a shaking breath.

“ _Tighter,_ ” he breathed, eyes wide, smile vicious. You could see the whites of his eyes, stark and wide, his pupils blown to hell and back. His voice was less than a whisper, his lips a faint blue, tinged violet with oxygen starvation, cold when you touched them, his cheeks uncomfortably red. Even his chest was blotchy, rising blood and white skin and dark hair, and you complied for only a second, tension twisting your own heart. He wasn’t breathing right, just a slight rasp and even that hissed away into nothing as you gave him what he asked for. He smiled, even then, sharp and soft and euphoric. You pulled the belt, felt the leather warm and too unforgiving in your hands. You felt it contract around his windpipe, felt it cut in just that last bit too deep. You looked into his glazed, blown-wide eyes, saw the rapture there, and there was a moment you felt powerful before you couldn’t bear it anymore and you undid the buckle, and with shaking fingers tugged the belt away from his throat. A rough, heavy gasp escaped him, followed by a choking inhale. There was disappointment in his face, a kind of betrayal, but the moment air rushed into his lungs you could feel his cock jerk and spill inside of you, hot and thick and enthusiastic. The breathless joy lingering in his eyes further compounded the wrongness of the situation. He sighed, head lolling dreamily back. He looked blissful, manic. You could feel his breathing against your chest, your hands, ragged and uneven. You could feel his come warm inside of you, your skin cold as ice. Your own lungs struggled, spasmed, and a sob escaped you.

“I’m sorry,” you whimpered, your hands shaking where they still held the belt, the thickness of it wrong in your hands. “I’m  _so sorry_.” You knew you were crying, you knew your face was twisted and crumpled with fear and distress. You couldn’t keep it in anymore, and all the turmoil of your heart began to slip out of you. You clung to the belt, held it fast in your hands even as you fell forward, your weeping face into his shoulder. You couldn’t bring yourself to stop. You felt him sigh again, his lungs rough and weak pressed up to yours. He sat up, just a little, and his voice was hoarse when he spoke.

“Hush,” he said quietly, one hand tangling in your hair, pressing you closer, and you leaned into him. “Hush now, little dove.” His other hand wrapped around your waist, and the feeling of warm, bare skin on your own was good. It was safety. The belt was stiff and pressed uncomfortably into both of your chests, his cock still oozed steadily into you, but to move would be to lose this momentary kindness, and you couldn’t bear that. You knew that when you’d calmed he’d be angry with you, that he’d be disappointed and annoyed and he’d send you away. You pressed your nose into his chest, the scent of his sweat and wine and faint cedar heady and homelike. You wished you could pause this moment, just settle into it, fall asleep in his embrace. Forget what you’d just done. But he broke away, first, unraveled his arms from around you. His fingertips whispered over your neck, your jaw.

He took your face between his hands, and though his own was illegible to you, seemingly calm and unaffected, you knew yours was likely a mess, striped clean with tears and spit and mucus. He examined you, eyes charting each inch of your weeping face, thumb stroking wistfully at your tears. He let his hands slip to your shoulders then down to your elbows, gliding softly to grasp your hands in his. He took the belt from you, his fingers firm but careful, offering no room for argument. His lips were still blue.

“Go clean yourself up,” he said, in that same quiet voice, rough and careful and plain. You trembled as you stood, and his hand caught your waist so you wouldn’t fall. The slide of his wet cock from your slit was painful, messy, and you couldn’t hold back the faint gasp that broke through your lips. His eyes narrowed, and he shifted his hips back to ease your way. You could feel it drag down your thigh as you moved, and for the first time his eyes followed the path of your shaking legs instead of the trail of his own seed down your skin. You stepped back, unsteady, and he watched carefully. You glanced to the bathroom, took one uncertain step. He didn’t move to follow you, just nodded, and you slipped into the bathroom alone.

You were sore and uncomfortable, and you felt a strange fear in every inch of your body. More than that, though, more than anything, you felt used. You felt twisted around and lost and _hurt_. You felt betrayed, in a way, defeated and broken-down. The trembling thing from before rattled you, tugged painfully at your chest. Your hands shook when you turned to lock the door behind you, but you felt much safer once you had. Turning, you examined the church’s bathroom- soft blue-green tiles, like tinted milk, covered the floor, every wall, creeping up in pixelated rows to scratch at the ceiling. The sole window was the same milk-glass as the window in Father Aizen’s office, and there was a soft golden glow from a lamp by the rafters.

There was a bathtub, and the thought of heated water had you padding towards it without a second’s waste.

You ran a bath, let the hot rush of water flow over your hands until the feeling of the heavy belt was gone from them. Steam drifted up from the water, ghostly and frail in the soft light. Sinking into the heat was heavenly, your cold fingers and toes defrosting, your knees and elbows tucked into your sides. You felt stranger than you had the last few times you’d been with Father Aizen. More aware, perhaps. Less uprooted, less lost. More tender and bruised.

You drew a hand through the water, back and forth, listening to the gentle rippling sloshes and drips of it. _He’d asked you to hurt him. He’d hurt you. He’d asked you to take his life in your hands. He trusted you. He didn’t want to hurt you. He did want to hurt you. He wanted you. He wanted you gone. He wanted, he wanted, he wanted_. Your mind spiraled down, over and over again.

 _But what do **you**  want?_ Your mind asked.  _What do you want from him?_

You sighed, buried your wet face in your wet hands.

“I don’t know,” you answered quietly. “I wish I did.”

* * *

 

Sosuke wiped the last traces of alcohol from his eyes, sighing, and replaced his glasses on his nose. He shouldn’t have. The damning click of the lock behind him made him wish he hadn’t.  It was a foolish, uncaring thing he’d done, and though he did such things often, rarely did he make such a mistake in such an important situation as this.

Her tears still dappled his shoulder, his chest, warm and wet, and the soft shaking of her sobs haunted his fingers where they’d pressed to her back. He’d forgotten, in the moment, that she was in his power, that she could no more stop than ask him to. He had forced her to his will, with slow seduction and a kindred want, bent her into his hand. And then he’d snapped her in two with it. He had imagined this differently. Breaking her, having her, owning her- he’d imagined it would be fun. He’d imagined it would satisfy him, that he would care nothing for her and use her as he wished.

He had wanted to comfort her. Not the false, gentle comfort he gave to parishioners, not the sympathetic frowns and words of wisdom. He hadn’t wanted her to stop crying, to stop being a nuisance. He reflected, with no small amount of trepidation, that what he’d wanted was for her to feel safe. With dawning horror, he realized he wanted her trust back. He wanted the way she buried her face in his chest, he wanted the way she sought him out for comfort, for safety.

He wanted her, not as an abstract victory or a tangible conquest, but as one person might care for another. He wanted her as a _lover_. He realized, eyes flickering and mouth settling into a vaguely disturbed frown, that he  _enjoyed her company_. That the brief banter and the ease with which she fell under his hand were intriguing, the shyness of her smile, the fierceness in her eyes all set something in him at ease. It wasn’t love, wasn’t even the beginning of it, but Sosuke realized with a strange clarity that he saw her as a person worthy of thought. Someone just a touch above the usual thoughtless masses, someone with enough to them he might find a friend, a companion.

And he’d made her cry. He hadn’t meant to. He’d meant for it to be a trial of sorts, a test. To see whether she was the sort of person who he could keep for a time, someone he could meet with in secret and indulge himself with, someone he could trust. She’d conducted herself excellently, she always did. Soft and sweet, but unafraid to rise to his standards, his implicit questions. He’d wondered what it might be like, to see her pretty eyes widen, her lips part with wonder as the air fled his body and caught furious in his lungs. What it would feel like, her hips over his, her hands pulling his own belt tight around his throat. He’d wondered if he could trust her with this, if he could place this in her hands. He could trust her, that much was plain, but could she trust him? Would she even want to? There was a strange settling in his chest, a thick blanket of silence. He knew that should he open his mouth, no elegant words would come out, no useful persuasions. No apologies.

He only hoped he could muster something comforting before she came out of the bathroom. Something honest, at the very least. He didn’t think he could stand to see her afraid again.

The water ran, and he listened carefully to the sounds coming from the bathroom. An errant sob, every now and then, the movement of water. A faint noise of pain when she moved the wrong way. They kindled shame in him, regret. An earnest sort of responsibility he hadn’t felt in years.

He wanted to care for her. He wanted to let himself care. The leather belt was heavy in his hands, thick and unforgiving and there was a sweet ache in his throat at the thought of it, the way it tightened, the way it rubbed, painfully, into his skin. The sharp pang of arousal he felt was quickly dampened by the memory of how worried she’d looked, the way she’d broken down in his lap. There were better ways he could have done it. There were ways he could have asked.  _Foolish boy_ , a familiar voice echoed in his head.  _You never had any idea the kind of pain you left behind you._

He resolved, wrapping the belt in a circle, to be careful. Not kind, because that wasn’t in his nature. Not gentle, because that would be false. But cautious, he could be. Careful he could be. He could keep close to her, if he was careful.

He could make this right, perhaps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now they can work out their issues like adults. By talking! I love it!


	6. Penance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amends are made. Trust is built. Aizen softens some.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One day i will reply to everyone's comments, but for that to happen i will have to reach a point where my brain does more than !!!!!! every time I read them.  
> Thank you all so so so much for adding kudos and commenting, because it truly does keep me writing, and it genuinely brightens my day every time I get an email from ao3.
> 
> Also, y'all always get these chapters before tumblr because my queue is set for 6 AM lmao

He knocked on the door, and you flinched. He couldn’t see you, you reminded yourself. He couldn’t see you, or really hear you, you’d bet, so he wouldn’t have known if it weren’t for the sound of water moving. He waited. You pulled your arms into your chest and sank, sank until your face was the only thing above the water. If he came in, all he’d see was the distorted underwater reflection of your limbs, your hair, your tired face. He was quiet, but you could tell he hadn’t moved away from the door. You braced yourself for him to unlock it, to break in.

“Are you hurt?” He asked, and the usual, careful, blankness of his face seemed to have spread to his voice as well. It pricked at you, unsettled you. He was supposed to be angry. He was supposed to be annoyed or upset or disappointed. You hadn’t prepared for him to be careful. He said nothing, waited for you, and you considered, blinking heavily.

“No,” you finally answered, and the roughness of your voice made it sound like a lie. You could hear the rasp of his hand sliding down the door, and the soft click of him unlocking it. You shook, and your arms pressed closer to your chest, your legs pulled into your body. He opened the door just a crack, then seemed to reconsider.

“May I come in?” He asked, still careful, still quiet, and you nodded automatically before you remembered he couldn’t see you.

“Yes,” you said, but your voice shook and your eyes burned a little in fear of what might come next.

He didn’t come in.

“You don’t mean that,” he said, and there was the disappointment, there was the shame. He leaned his back against the doorway, holding the doorknob in his hand, halfway in and halfway out of the room. You peeked over the edge of the bathtub, and found him staring contemplatively at the ceiling. He wasn’t intruding any more than he already had, and a soft spark of gratitude rippled through you. You looked him over, saw that he’d cleaned himself up. His shirt was still open, but on, pulled back over his chest. His pants were buttoned again, his hair half pushed back over his forehead, the rest of it falling forward haphazardly. He looked as much of a mess as you felt, and your eyes caught heavily on the red band of swelling around his neck. It punched through you, and you felt the answer leave your mouth.

“I don’t have a choice, do I?” You asked, and your voice cracked, shook, faded. You could hear him sigh, something soft and melancholy, and he did look at you, brown eyes clearer than before. His glasses rested tiredly on the tip of his nose. He looked a little bit surprised, a little offended. Mostly, he looked as if that was the answer he’d been expecting, and it made you angry. “You didn’t give me a choice.” He pushed off the wall, the door opening as he did, and stepped forward, closing it carefully behind him. He moved to a cabinet against the wall beside the door, opened it and reached in. You sank back into the water before he could come over, as if that could stop him, as if it would.

“No,” he acknowledged, and each step closer made your heart beat faster. “I didn’t give you a choice.” He knelt, one hand curling over the side of the bathtub. You didn’t look at him, stared straight up. You could hear him talking, though, and as tempted as you were to simply put your ears under and block him out, there was something delicate in the way he spoke, something that said he was trying. “I should have asked you. I forget sometimes that the very same subservience which led me to bring you into my bed is also what prevents you from leaving it.” You chanced a glance and found him staring straight ahead, too, gazing blankly at the milk-green wall across from him. “I forget that telling you is not the same as asking you.” He looked down, suddenly, and you felt caught in the intense honesty in his face. “I should have asked.” There was history, there, some old regret tangled up with the new. There was a pang of something in your chest, a spasm of breathless understanding. “I won’t ask you to stay. I won’t order you. I ask only that if you do intend to leave, you don’t speak of what we’ve done.” His eyes flickered over your face, strange and soft in the dim light. He stood, as if to leave you alone. You reached forward and caught his wrist, and you knew he could have shrugged off your grip, but he stopped dead, turned back to look at you.

“I wouldn’t,” you said, the words slipping from your mouth against your will, and the surprise in his face spurred you on. “If I did leave. I wouldn’t tell anyone.”

“If?” He asked, the curve of his mouth like cotton wool. Soft, numbing, clean. You felt your shame overtake your desperation once more, suddenly aware of your body half-out of the bath, your hand wet and staining his cuff with water, the desperation in your position.

“If,” you admitted, looking away, letting your hand slip from his. You drew into the water, pressing your back to the end of the bathtub and curling up there, trying to avoid his eyes. He reached over to the drain, hand hovering over the plug.

“May I?” He asked, and the sudden rash of respect was strange, pleasantly so, and you nodded, hoping it would continue. The water began to drain with a gurgle, and you felt the cold again as it did. Your legs drawn up to your chest, your arms folded in, you huddled in the quickly-emptying bathtub, unsure of what to do next. The air bit at your wet skin, the chill sinking into your bones. Your clothes were still in his office, you realized. You had nothing else to wear. You suddenly felt something warm, something soft, descend on your shoulders, and you looked down to see a large, thick towel being wrapped around you. Father Aizen’s hands were firm but gentle, folding it over you, pulling your hair out from under it. He looked at your shoulder even as his hands moved to pull it closed over your chest, something tense and tired in his face.

“Why are you being so nice?” You asked, your voice cracking again. You were so confused. So lost, with all of these changes, all of this inconstancy. You felt your eyes burn and prayed you wouldn’t cry. You reached up to rub them, and the flicker of a frown crossed his face.

“I’d like to discuss what I did, if that’s alright,” he said quietly, his hands resting on your arms, holding you just below the shoulders, the heat of them bleeding through the towel and warming you. “I didn’t mean- well. I’d like to talk.” You wanted to fall into him. Wanted things to be simple, like before, when you thought you could trust him, when the things that tore you inside-out felt good. You wanted to bury your face in his chest and never move again, wanted to be warmed by his arms and his sighs ruffling your hair. You wanted…  _this_. You wanted it back, and the certainty of that bloomed stronger in your chest, returned some small semblance of strength to you.

“I think we should talk, too,” you said, and the flicker of relief in his face made you give a tiny smile. “That worried?” You asked, and the joke was ruined by the cough that forced its way from you. It was painful, wrenching air from your chest, wringing your still-sore throat. What had happened in the confessional felt so long ago, but your voice still rasped out of you. The wine hadn’t helped. His hands left your shoulders so he could draw you into his chest, one hand moving to rest on your back, and he half-lifted you as he stood, supporting you. He pulled you from the bathtub easily, and you made a small noise of surprise for the split second you were weightless.

“I don’t get worried,” he told you, setting your feet down on another towel on the cold floor. You didn’t argue, but you did manage a single huff of laughter. You tapped your feet on the towel and raised an eyebrow at him. “I  _don’t,_ ” he insisted coldly, his mouth a thin, frowning line. His ears were pink, and you could follow the flush over the bridge of his nose, faint as it was. You tried to smile, and coughed again instead. He cleared his throat and turned you smoothly so you faced the door. “You’re welcome to the clothes you were wearing, or to the ones you returned to me. I’m sure I could find something else if neither of those is amenable to you-”

“It’s fine,” you said, and he made a disbelieving little hum. He pressed up behind you, his hands wrapping around your arms once more. He had a light, forbidding grip on you, holding you close. Holding you steady.

“Is it, indeed?” There was doubt mixed in with the amusement in his voice, a kind of affectionate suspicion. “Would you say if it wasn’t?”

“What would you want me to say?” You heard him sigh, felt him lean forward, drop his head until his forehead rested against your wet hair.

“What you feel,” he said, and his breath was warm on your neck. He sounded tired, sounded frustrated. “I want the truth from you. I want you to tell me if you don’t want something, if you hate something. I want-  _honesty_. I want your honesty.”

“Even if you don’t like what I say?” You asked, and it took everything in you to keep your voice even, to keep your voice calm. You could feel him sigh, turn his head just an inch to rest his cheek on your head.

“Even then,” he agreed. “Especially then.” His fingers flexed, contracted, and then let go of your shoulders. He stepped away, rested a hand at the small of your back, pushing you lightly towards the door. “Get dressed. You’re freezing.”

“Yes, Father,” you said quietly, obediently, and you caught the shuttered, tired look in his eye before he nodded you on. You padded out to the office, damp and shivering, and you reached for his shirt on the shelf before you even thought about it. Warm, dry, and soft, it felt like safety on your skin. It smelled like your detergent, like the cedar filling the room, the smoke drifting around. You didn’t bother with anything else. The shirt reached your thighs, anyway, closer to your knees than your hips.

“You look at home there,” he observed wryly from the doorway. You spun, feeling as if you’d been caught in the middle of something. “In my shirt.”

“I like it,” you admitted reluctantly. “It feels safe.”

“Safe,” he repeated with a measure of curiosity. “After everything we’ve done,  _my_  clothing feels safe to you?” You shrugged self-consciously, buttoning the last top button.

“I don’t know,” you said quietly, shuffling to sit on the same chair as before. He sat beside you, this time, angled towards you, hunched and folded as if he was trying to contain himself. You sighed, shifted. The silence persisted. You looked at your bare feet, at the table, at the glasses still resting where they’d been.

“I didn’t hate it.” He looked over, then, eyes calculating, face neutral. You reached towards his neck, to the wound you’d placed there, and he leaned forward just enough to encourage you. ”I didn’t know what it was, but it wasn’t… it wasn’t bad.”

“No? I haven’t hurt you unbearably with my callousness, then?” He asked, and there was enough openness in his face that you didn’t feel like lying. He didn’t wait for a response though, saying, “But I should have asked. We can agree on that, to start?”

“Yes,” you said quietly, “You should have asked.” He nodded, looking over at you, eyes tracing the fall of water-dark hair over your shoulders, your back, the way your hands were drawn into his sleeves, the way you stared straight ahead. He looked away.

“If I had, what would you have said?”  His hands rested on his knees, and you both sat still and quiet, like a pair of tired statues.

“Probably yes,” you responded, shrugging.

“Probably?” He asked, and you sniffled, pulled your knees in tighter to your chest.

“If it was you asking, yes.” You didn’t know how else to say it, how else to explain that most of what you knew about sex, you’d learned from him. That you didn’t know what you would have said because he hadn’t asked, that it didn’t matter.

“Because it was me? Or because you wanted to?”

“Is there a difference?” You shook your head. “You said it yourself. I’d do anything you asked.”

“Then I must be careful what I ask,” he murmured, tilting his head. The red bruising flashed at you again, and your own breath caught in your throat.

“Can I-?” You nodded at his neck, and he let out a breath of fond laughter.

“Would you like to see the damage you did, little dove?” He opened his arms, and you were in them in but a moment, breathing in the familiar scent, feeling a familiar warmth, a familiar body beneath yours.

“Yes,” you admitted, settling over his hips, a soft reflection of before. His hands swept soft and unhurried down your sides, smoothing up and down your waist. “I’ve never.. Well, you know I’d never done anything before you.” You leaned forward, curious, to peek at the mottled band around his neck. “This was so much more than I thought anything could be.” He listened, hungry for detail, and when you stopped he bit a sharp kiss into the bottom of your jaw.

“Tell me what it was like?” He asked, and you could tell he’d wanted to make it a command. You appreciated the effort, despite the failure.

“I was so afraid to hurt you, to disappoint you. I wasn’t ready for it, but it felt… nice for a moment. But your breathing, and…” Your fingers traced delicately along the reddened, purpling band around his neck, bruises and blood rising to the surface, tender, torn skin. He arched his head back just enough for you to examine it fully. You could feel the heat of it, the soft, delicate swelling. The difference as you felt his veins, the muscles, the curves and hollows in his flesh. He was beautiful, always, but more so under your touch, what was visual amplified by dimension and sensation. His breath hitched again as you drew your fingertips over a particularly dark section of bruising, and you felt a curious wash of fondness.

There was something close, something secret in the way you gently stroked your fingers over your own mark around his throat. “Did you like it?” You knew you sounded afraid again, nervous, and childish to be hanging on his every word like this, but you’d suffered for it, you’d given something of yourself, and if you’d failed even after that... His fingers closed around yours, lifting your hand to his mouth so he could press a kiss to your shaking knuckles.

“Little dove, you have no idea.” There was a curious, nostalgic smile on his lips, and he turned your hand over to run a thumb across your palm. He looked deep in thought, silent and contemplative. You waited, letting him pet at your hand, trace circles over it.

“Father?” You finally asked, and he looked up with a flicker of confusion before his face resettled.

“We should have a safe word,” he said, apropos of nothing.

“Should we?” You asked, genuinely confused.

“Yes,” he nodded. “A word you’re unlikely to say otherwise. Something easy to remember. Something distinctive…”

“If…” you began, avoiding his eyes. “If I asked you for mercy. If I begged… would you give it to me?”

“Mercy,” he murmured after a moment, thoughtful and distant. “Yes,” he agreed, running one finger over the thin, sensitive skin on your palm. “I could be merciful.”

“Alright,” you agreed shyly. “If I can’t do something, I just…”

“You say the word and we step away,” he said, pausing. “I’d also like- well. I’d like to teach you something, if I may.” He tucked a lock of hair behind your ear. His fingers trailed down your arms to circle gently around your wrists.

“Teach me what?”

“How to do it properly,” he said, placing your hands on his throat again, each of them flat, fingers wrapping over the sides as if to strangle. “I’d like to show you… a kinder way, perhaps.”

“You’re not kind,”

“You are,” he responded, a flicker of light catching in the copper of his eyes. “You’re sweet, little dove, and kind, and I asked you to be... me. Of course it was all wrong.” His hands were warm, pressed to yours, but not forceful, not painful. Just holding your own there, keeping you tied to him by the barest thread of touch. You could pull away, you knew. He wouldn’t stop you. “So please, let me ask of you one more thing.” He bared his neck entirely, eyes fixed keenly on your face, breathing slow but shallow, anticipating. “Let me ask you to be kind.”

“You’ll talk to me?” You asked, and though your voice was small, it was certain.

“As long as I can,” he replied, a touch of a wry smile in his mouth.

“If I call for mercy-” you began worriedly.

“I’ll let you go,” he promised, thumbs rubbing over the ridges of your knuckles. “Softly, now, little dove. You can feel my pulse… here.” He tapped his index finger against yours, moved it just a space, and then you could feel the rush of his blood, the beat off his heart under your fingertips. Constant and comforting and warm. It sped up when you touched it, like a hummingbird’s wings.  “If it slows, you can decide whether it’s a good amount of force, or if that means too little air.”

“But if you’re able to speak-”

“I’d never tell you to stop, if I had things my way,” he said, smiling wickedly, something apologetic in his voice. “I have very few lines, myself.” His palms slid over the backs of your hands, curled once around your wrists and then fell away, clenching softly, on the arms of his chair.  “You can take your hands away at any time. There’s nothing to untie.” You tightened your grip, just the tiniest contraction, but strong. You sighed at the expression that crossed his face. “ _Oh_ ,” he breathed, and you smiled at the surprise in his voice, at the valiant twitch of his cock at your hip. You pressed more evenly, spreading the pressure out over his throat, digging your fingertips in for just a few seconds and cherishing the pleasured, gentle sigh he let out as he melted back into the chair beneath you.

You leaned forward, moving your thigh further from his, pressing your hip against his cock. He’d come less than an hour ago, but you weren’t sure that was what you wanted from him. Just to pull a bit more feeling from him, just to give him a taste of the exhaustive, painful time between orgasms he’d used against you before. You could feel his lungs contract beneath his ribs, could feel the rise and fall against your own chest.

“You’re a little bit sweet like this, Father,” you whispered into his ear, smiling at the soft, half-hidden moans escaping his lips. You rolled your hips again, and he arched back an inch or two, his own hips jutting back into the chair and then an inch forward, back towards you. “Is this what you like so much?” You asked, pressing down harder, and the tinge of violet on his lips tasted like wine and soap when you kissed them.

“I like it when you’re pleased with me,” you hummed, pulling your hands up, letting him drink in the oxygen he’d been lacking. Then you curled your fingers, deepened the small, fingertip bruises you knew would be forming. He looked ecstatic at the feeling, rapturous and soft. But his eyes weren’t distant and unfixed like before. This time they were fixed on you. “When you look at me like that-  _just_  like that, like I’m something good.” You pressed short, dry kisses up the side of his face, jaw to cheek to temple to forehead, your fingers beginning to ache. You pulled your hand away slowly, gradually lessening the pressure, feeling his pulse return stronger and stronger. “Thank you, Father,” you breathed, and he sighed in unison with your breath, both of you relaxing, softening in the aftermath. He hadn’t come again, his cock was still soft and hot against your hip, but there was something deeper about the satisfaction on his face, something more complete in the intimacy of your touch after the fact. He reached up and pulled a lock of hair from your face, his eyes still wet, his lips still blue.

“You are good,” he murmured, and for a moment you had no idea what he meant, but then he ducked his head to kiss his way down the side of your neck, your shoulder, your side, letting your arm loop around the back of his head and hold him close. His mouth was soft and warm, closed-mouth kisses over the curve of your ribs.

“I’m fairly certain you’re the only one who thinks that,” you admitted sheepishly. “God probably doesn’t agree.”

“Hmm,” he hummed appreciatively into your side. “We often disagree, He and I.” His mouth continued in it’s track, suckling and nipping at the ridges of your ribs, the softer spaces in between, and then finally, burning a heated red mark into the sensitive curve of your waist. When he pulled away his lips were red, his hair mussed. His eyes softened with pleasure and relief. “But on your count, I think we may have found peace.” He arched up to make a similar, gasping outline on your neck, wet and hot and rife with the sharpness of teeth, the soft muscle of tongue. He was almost unbalanced in his fervor, rising to reach, and you had to curl your hand into his hair to keep him steady. He pulled back a breath, approving, and ducked in once more to press a final kiss to the spot.

“It felt a bit wrong for only one of us to leave with a reminder,” he said, and the gentle ache of his mark bloomed sweetly under your skin. He looked up at you, his face serious. “Though mine hurt you more than me.”

“Father,” you began, and he shook his head.

" _I almost doubted the goodness of God, in not annihilating man on the day he first sinned._ " The words came softly from his lips, contemplative, steady and measured as his hands on your hips, your waist. They wept repentance and you couldn’t stop yourself from holding him closer.

“Is that an apology?” You asked, a fond, weary half-smile unfolding on your mouth.

“Not quite,” he admitted, kissing you, one hand curling into your wet hair. It was a slow kiss, hard and firm, but it lingered. As if there was a sort of regret in it, an impression he’d like to leave. When he pulled away, his eyes were open, darting over your face.

“Who wrote it?” You asked, reaching down to tuck a lock of hair behind his ear, to smooth your hungry fingers over his skin and return the favor. He leaned into your touch, half-smiling.

“Emily Bronte,” he said. “A great lover of destruction.”

“Like you?”

“Not as bad as me.”

“I don’t know that ‘bad’ is the word, Father.” You ran your fingers through his hair, combing through it like find silk or soft sand. Letting those dark curls knot between your fingers, over your knuckles as if to beg you not to go.

“You would know better than I, my sweet, sacred little dove.” He bit little red marks over the arch of your collarbone, one for each word.

“I’m hardly a saint,” you laughed, and he looked up at you over his glasses.

“All saints do suffer, though, don’t they?” He smiled wickedly, wistfully. “And beg Gods for mercy.”

“It’s not God I beg,” you reminded him. Your eyes sharpened when he tilted his head again, and your gentle hand at his chin was a silent question. He acquiesced. “Father, I’m sorry, that looks… awful. Are you in pain?”

“You were much gentler this time,” he said, allowing you free reign to touch and hiss at the wounds you’d given him. He bore it with the curious passivity of a bemused tiger, lithe and lethal and complacent. “Used much less… force.”

“Filopressure. That’s the word,” you told him, still examining the mottled darkness around his neck. “The amount of pressure exerted upon the blood vessels by a ligature.” You knew that one by heart, had since you were a child. It lingered on your tongue, an unwelcome guest that darted in and out of consciousness. _Filopressure, sempiternal, radiance._  Words that crept. He looked up at you, fingers still set into your hip, his face much sharper now that it was bare of his glasses.

“Are you a medical student?” He was curious, because normal people didn’t spit those words out like they knew them. You shouldn’t have, either.

“No, but my father was one.”

“Was?” His face had gone hungry, focused, as if the petty minutiae of your life mattered, and you wanted to laugh.

“Well,” you amended, pausing. “He’s still a doctor. I’m not sure he’s still my father.” You ran a thumb over your fingerprints in his throat, more absorbed in that than thinking of your parents. They were violet and blue, like hydrangeas, and you bent to kiss each of them in turn. “It’s alright, Father.” You let your lips rest on his pulse point, your hands tangled up in his hair, soft and harsh and lost entirely in him. You whispered into his skin.

 “I’m used to being alone.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> @lovexconspiracy: You were right. They tried talking, but it also took some gratuitous dry-humping to really get that trust back on track.


	7. Monarch and Fox

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Church Girl's neighbor poses a problem, groundwork is laid, and Gin and Rangiku return.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no explanation for how long this has taken, but rest assured I do intend to post the Christmas chapter sometime very soon. Unlike this one, there's actually smut in it!

“I’m used to being alone,” you murmured into his neck, fingers curling into his hair, his shirt, still wet from your tears and the water dripping from your hair. You could feel the light, stiff fabric crumple between your fingers, and the heat of his body beneath. Like holding the sun in your arms.

“Where are your parents?” He asked curiously, and the mild edge of paternal concern almost made you laugh.

“Gone,” you said softly. “Up and left before I finished my last year of university.”

“How callous,” he said, still amused. Still half-smiling and tolerant. Your eyes flicked to his, smug and drowsy with his conquering of your reluctance.

“They’re not very nurturing,” you said, offering him a tired half-smile. “And it’s not like they were wrong, is it? I’m doing alright without them.” His hands skimmed up your sides, teasing and possessive, passive and distant.

“Look where you are, little dove,” he said. “Would you call being in my arms ‘alright’?” You could feel the ominous curl of his lips by your ear, and you pulled away, sitting up straight on his lap.

“You’re very set on being a predator,” you said, frowning. His smile spread, more than a threat.

“I’m very set on being what I am,” he corrected you, and his grasp on your sides tightened, his fingertips digging little divots of bruises in between your ribs, pulling you closer, speaking into your lips. “And on making certain you don’t forget what that is.”

“A man of god?” You asked mildly, leaning into his touch. He laughed, softly, less than a breath against your mouth.

“A god,” he murmured, before kissing any reply from your mouth. You felt nothing, internally, but a settling of certainty. A confirmation of what you already knew to be true. Who do you pray to? his voice whispered in your head. Who do you beg?

You, you remembered saying, and you said it again in response. You, Father. It was a lie, you knew, his mortality plain beneath your hands, but the feeling of him was more than you’d ever gotten from God. He was realer, truer, more solid. His mouth was warm, and from your lips on his, your ribs where he held you, to your face, to your chest, you could feel that heat spread, making the wet cotton of his shirt stifling, clinging. You wanted it off, you wanted to press closer to him, you wanted- but he was the one to decide, in this as in most things. He pulled away, maddeningly unaffected, as unblushing and unruffled as it was possible to be.

“You should go,” he said, with the same catlike half-smile, opaque and uncertain in its meaning. “It’s getting quite late, little dove.” You sighed, pressing your face into his shoulder for a moment. His hands came up to pull you away, and you slipped off of his lap reluctantly, standing tired and uncertain before him. “Where did you leave your shoes?”

“Over by the door, Father.” He stood, his movements so fluid and certain you felt clumsy just standing there. Away from him, the air was cooler, and you felt more and more self-conscious. The water dripping down your legs, the wet, uncomfortable mass of hair stuck to your face, your back. You crept to where you’d left your skirt, your own shirt, crumpled on the floor, and you began to dress. He returned, shoes in hand, to find you unbuttoning his shirt, fingers slipping on the small buttons.

“Leave it,” he said. His face was illegible, but not angry. “It suits you.” After a pause he shook his head. “And it’s clean,” he added, placing your shoes on the floor in front of you and turning back to his desk. He cleared his throat, as if reassembling himself. “You should go,” he said again.

“Yes, Father,” You said quietly, slipping your shoes on. You bundled your shirt up in your arms, holding it like a stack of books to your chest. You reached out, lightly, and laid a hand on his shoulder. “Thank you,” you said. He stiffened, and nodded. You could feel his smile.

The smell of his soap, the waft of incense from the nave, they followed you home. It was a long walk in the dark, complicated by stray brush and squirrels and the dust from the dirt road clinging to your wet skin. You knew you’d have to shower again when you got home, even if your whole body cried out for sleep, for the church’s clear water, for the warmth of him in your hands. You knew you’d have to wash all of that away with the dirt.

It began raining when you hit Main Street. A soft mist, at first. Then full drops, a sprinkle. By the time you passed Hirako’s speakeasy, it was pouring. The water caught the light beautifully, streetlights glimmering golden-white in the puddles and wet asphalt. You could feel the cold water soaking your hair, your face, his shirt. Your feet, shoes quickly waterlogged, your legs, rinsing the dust from your skin. The shirt in your arms was heavy with rainwater, and you couldn’t help but laugh. It had been such a strange night already, and now this. The first rain of November, though likely not the last. There was a strange warmth in the water on your skin, even as the chill bit into your bones. 

You couldn’t resist a quick twirl, your soaking skirt swaying out heavily. You couldn’t stop smiling, either, joy beaming from your face. It was as though all the fear and panic and sick sorrow of before had swept out of you. You jogged to your door, and as you scrambled to unlock it, you caught a glimpse of the woman next door between her curtains. She hurried out of sight, but you had a sinking suspicion she had been spying. Again.

Father Aizen would be less than pleased, you knew. You were less than pleased. Your joy soured, you moved slowly inside. You took off your wet clothes by the door, and carried them, shivering, to the laundry basket. You pulled a few towels down from the shelf over the dryer, your cold hands dripping into them. They were old and soft, worn and well-used from years of your life. Wrapping them around your shoulders, your body, your head, you stumbled into your bedroom, wet-footed and shaking. Trembling. You dried yourself as best you could, tumbling into bed in a tangle of towels and wet hair. The sheets were soft and clean, smelling of faint lavender soap and sharp chemicals, though they smelled less and less like home with every breath. You pulled them up over you, filling your breath with memory. It stung, the faint sounds of childhood, the wisps of your parents’ touch and the echoes of affection. You turned and wrapped the towels more closely around yourself to block them out, but you only caught a faint snatch of roses, cedar and spice, myrrh, and it carried you sweetly into a troubled sleep, fear of tomorrow following you. 

Your dreams were quiet, slow and calm and empty. You were so alone. So, so alone. You dreamed the whole world was silent, swathed in snow and frost, street lamps throwing scattered light over the ice. The town was drowning in the cold, the sounds of Hirako’s usual music warbling out over the ice in distorted, halfhearted joy. Eerie, all of it, the sky clouded white and every step echoing like a gunshot. You called, hoping against hope. Nobody answered. Nothing moved but the wind. The music wailed happily out of every closed window. You felt abandoned. You looked around you, more frantically with each turn. Nobody. Nothing. But then, over the sprawl of the town, you could see the church. Beautiful, and frozen, and cold.

And lit. Every window poured light, painting the snow all manner of golds and blues and greens, white and red and silver. 

You dreamed the rain washed the whole town away, that you climbed to the church, bloody and mud-spattered. Slowly, slowly, the sun setting, you ascended. It felt as if you were climbing for hours, your feet freezing, wet, bleeding, your knees going red and raw from the cold air. Your hands cramped and went stiff, your face chapping and aching. When you reached the doors, every part of you hurt. You struggled to knock. You were seized, suddenly, with fear. Fear that he’d leave you in the cold, that he’d lock you out and leave you alone forever. You banged your fist, painfully, fearfully, on the door, and even when you felt the warm blush of blood as your skin split, you kept knocking. Your tears froze in your eyes, your blood iced over. The water in your mouth began to turn to frost, blood leaking from your lips. Still you called, choked, screamed.

You woke, breathing heavily and on the verge of tears. The house was dead silent, your sheets thrown off and cold in the autumn air. It was still raining. You sat, hand over your mouth, fighting the fear back down into your chest. You were alone, yes, but not entirely. You could hear the splash of cars driving past your house, the wet road like a snake’s hiss under their tires. You could see the gold of the street lamps, smell coffee from next door. You weren’t alone. 

You pulled the sheets in close, layering blanket over blanket over your body, holding the towels crushed up to your chest. “I’m not alone,” you whispered. “I’m not alone.” The faint scent of roses and smoke caught in your nose again, and you breathed more deeply. “I’m not alone.”

When you slept, you dreamed of ice.

You went to work at nine. Urahara didn’t keep a regular schedule, but the earliest he opened was nine, so it was best to be there just in case. You didn’t eat, still too tightly-wound to stomach anything more than water. You were still so cold. So, so cold.

You looked over to the woman next door as you locked up for the day, and frowned when the curtains moved. It was troubling to think of her keeping an eye on you. She probably meant it kindly, you mused, trudging to Urahara’s chipped but cleanswept storefront. Probably meant to look out for you, poor abandoned dear that everyone knew you were. Not her fault you were out at all hours doing suspicious things with kind Father Aizen up on the hill, sneaking in and out of the church covered in sweat and come and-

“Not a good train of thought for work,” you told yourself, sighing. You stopped, recollected your thoughts, spooled in your emotions, and kept walking. She was a concern. That was fair enough, you thought, but what sort and to what degree, you couldn’t say. Part of you wanted to ask, wanted to knock on her door and question why she felt the need to monitor your every move. The rest of you said that was a stupid plan, and you agreed.

When you arrived at work, you were greeted by a large wagon of presents, antlers and branches of holly.

“Sir?” You asked, and Urahara himself popped out of the mass of paraphernalia. He was in red and white, and you had a sinking suspicion you knew where this was headed.

“Ah! Yes! You’ll be putting ribbons on all of these!”

Or not.

“Why… will I be doing that?”

“One month to Christman! We have to be ready, miss!” You tugged experimentally on the rope, but the cart- on wheels, even!- refused to budge. “Oh! Ever so sorry! I keep thinking you’re Tessai.” He slipped easily from his place on the cart, and you were only mildly irritated to find him wearing a full Santa suit. “Try it again!”

“......Alright.” You found it much easier to pull the cart in once Urahara had jumped out of it, but it was still unbelievably heavy. “Sir, why am I putting ribbons on branches of holly? Won’t they wilt before Christmas? It’s still November.”

“No, actually! They’ll stay crisp for four hundred years before decaying!” You didn’t want to ask anything more after that. You didn’t want to think anything more after that, if you were being honest. Your brain took you unfortunate places on that train of thought.

“Thank you for explaining, Sir,” you said quietly, and he tipped his obnoxious little hat at you as he swept into the front of the shop. You spent the next four hours quietly tying bows of varying sizes onto branches of holly, assorted boxes, and dismembered antlers you strongly suspected once belonged to living deer. 

Very strongly. One was bloody. 

“Sir?” You asked, holding it up. Urahara swept over, peered at it for a minute, and then shook his head.

“That won’t do,” he said, pouting. “How careless of them.” You felt, more and more, like your entire life was one long, very confusing dream. Between work, Father Aizen, and your neighbor’s supervision of your life, it was as though you’d fallen suddenly into something much more interesting than you were used to.

“Do you want me to… get rid of it?” You hazarded a guess. He looked at you oddly.

“No,” he shrugged. “Just rinse it. It will be fine.” You tried not to sigh.

“Yes, sir.” 

Six hours later you handed off the unfortunate antlers, oddly shaped boxes, and prickly (and implicitly radioactive) holly over to Tessai, washing glitter and blood off of your hands. The walk home was quick and cold, the ground still wet from last night’s rain.

When you got home, you had only a few minutes before your doorbell rang. It startled you, and you crept to the door narrow-eyed and nervous.

“Oh!” You blinked owlishly. “You!”

“Us,” Gin agreed, smiling. “You sound so very glad to see us. Maybe we should go?”

“Go?” Rangiku asked, frowning at him. “Why?”

“I told you we should’ve called ahead,” he complained, poking her in the side. “You’re too impatient.”

“I’m impatient? Me? You’re the one who couldn’t wait til we got home to-”

“She assaulted me in the airplane bathroom,” Gin drawled.

“Don’t! Listen to him!” Rangiku protested, slapping her hands over his mouth. “He’s a liar! He lies!”

“Do not,” he laughed, squirming out of her hold. “She’s a demon,” he told you conspiratorially. “Complete succubus. I think she lives off of it-”

“Oh, like you had nothing to do with it!” She scoffed, trying, yet again, to put her hands over his face. “Evil,” she told you. “He’s evil.”

“You want to take this inside?” he asked, wrestling her arms down.

“Not sure,” you said, deadpan. “I kind of like the door-to-door wrestling match aspect of this.”

“Have you met our lord and savior the condom?” Rangiku said, fluttering her eyelashes. “He’s done wonders for my life.”

“Please make her go inside,” Gin begged you flatly. You nodded, unable to push down your smile, and pulled open your door to them.

“Welcome back,” you laughed, and they swept into your house like a typhoon. Gin plopped down easily on your couch and stretched out, crossing his arms over his chest like he planned on sleeping there.  
“So you’re happy to see us, after all, then?” He asked.

“I’m very glad to see you,” you said sincerely. “It’s just that I wasn’t expecting you back before Christmas.”

“Christmas in Paris?” Rangiku said, grimacing as she plopped down on his legs. “It can be nice, but it’s overrated.”

“Overrated?” You gawked. “You must have been there an awful lot in the past, then.” Gin looked at you with a little sadness and shrugged.

“It’s a big city,” he offered. “There’s not much difference from one to the next, no matter where they are. You’ll figure it out once you’ve been to a few.”

“It’s unlikely I’ll be to any,” you told him, and the resignation in your voice made even you sad. “But Christmas is nice here. You’ve got the tree lighting and all. Maybe it’ll even snow. They say we’re likely to have a wet December either way.”

“Every December is a wet December here,” Rangiku said grumpily. “All slush and no snow.”

“Here’s hoping,” you muttered, raising your crossed fingers. “It would be nice.”

“Speaking of nice,” Rangiku said, in the very specific tone that said trouble, “I want to take you down to that new coffee shop and introduce you to some friends of mine.” You paused, mouth open.

“What, now?”

“Yes, now!” She said, bouncing up. “Gin can watch the house!” You eyed Gin suspiciously.

“Are you going to steal my birth certificate if I leave you alone in my house?” He shrugged, grinning widely.

“Probably not,” he said. You watched him for a minute more, then shrugged yourself.

“Close enough.” You could hear him snickering as you closed the door.

Rangiku dragged you up Main street, chattering happily all the way. It was pleasant. It kept you in the moment, rather than drifting off into possibility. She described Paris to you, glowing. “Gin seemed to enjoy it,” she said, face soft and bright. “Oh, you should’ve seen him. He’s so much freer out of this place.” She shot a glance at you and then looked away. “It’s good to see him off guard sometimes,” she admitted.

“Why stay, then?” You asked, looking up at her from under your hair. “Wouldn’t you both be happier… elsewhere?” Rangiku nodded slowly.

“Maybe,” she admitted. “But leaving is- it would be difficult for us. Not just because of our jobs, but we… we grew up here. It’s home.”

“Yeah,” you said, thinking bitterly of your own childhood. “For better or for worse.”

“I think for better,” she said hopefully. “We’re in a good place.” Stopping suddenly, she gestured widely to a storefront. “Literally! Because here it is!”

“Cafe Panda,” you read. “Very creative.”

“I think it’s cute.” Rangiku bustled you inside, waving happily to the baristas behind the counter. “And they make strong coffee, which is the important part.”

“Very strong,” the man at the register said. “Black as a panda’s heart.”

“Good evening, Shuhei!” She clapped her hands. “Caramel and creamer,” Rangiku told him, tossing her money onto the counter. “And she’ll have-?”

“Uh, tea,” you said. “Jasmine? With… milk?”

“Alright,” he said, tapping some buttons. “You sure this’ll cover it, Matsumoto?”

“Oh, yeah,” she waved him off. “It’s enough.” He raised his eyebrows but said nothing.

“She skip her tab often?” You asked, smiling. He nodded, widening his eyes for effect.

“All the time.” Rangiku scoffed, and both of you ignored her.

“Criminal,” you commiserated, shaking your head. “Absolutely abominable.”

“She’s nothing but trouble.”

“You’re both mean,” she said, pulling you along to the pick-up counter. “I’m separating you before you start swapping stories.”

“It’s too late,” you told her, pouting. “I know where these people work, now. I can just drop by and tell them all the horrible things you’ve made me do.”

“Like what?” One barista asked, leaning on the glass partition. “Spending all of your money?”  
“She made me pick out floral arrangements,” you told them, dramatically pressing a hand to your forehead. “She made me make floral arrangements!”

“Oh, come on! You enjoyed it!”

“Did I?” You grimaced at her for effect. The redhead stuck a hand out over the wall, and you shook it gently.

“Orihime,” she introduced herself, smiling widely. “You must be the one who helped plan the wedding!”

“Oh! Yeah, that was- that was mostly her. Only a little bit me,” you told her, looking away. A flash of memory- lipstick on your thumb, his hands on your face- disrupted the moment, and whatever solid ground you’d found began to wear away under the memory of his skin on yours.

“I’m going to regret bringing you here, but this is Rukia-“ Rangiku turned to you, pointing out the other barista.

“Kuchiki,” you finished for her, smiling at the girl. She looked almost the same, though she’d cut her hair much shorter. “We were in classes together at the university.”

“Gothic literature,” Rukia made a face. “I’ve never seen a person so excited to discuss bad parenting.”

“What can I say,” you said dryly. “I have firsthand experience.” Rangiku nearly choked on her drink, and Orihime looked horrified. Rukia just smiled. You felt almost normal, almost warm. Almost like you had friends.

“How are you?” She asked, leaning one elbow on the counter. “Last I heard you’d taken a job in town?”

“Urahara’s shop,” you nodded, making a face. “I don’t know why he keeps me on, honestly. I don’t think he needs me for anything.” You raised both hands to show the holly pricks. “Just a lot of strange tasks.”

“I bet,” Rukia snorted, shaking her head. “My brother used to say he lost his brain in the back room years ago.”

“How is Byakuya?” Rangiku asked, wearing a familiar little smirk. “Still tempestuous?”

“He’s calmed down a lot,” Rukia laughed, face softening. “He and Hisana moved to Provence this summer, and she’s gotten a lot better.” She looked to you with a sheepish realization. “My uh, my sister’s always been ill, but recently it got much worse. So she and her husband moved for her health.”

“Oh,” you said, awkwardly. “I’m happy to hear that. That she’s gotten better, I mean, not that she was, you know, sick and- I’m sorry-”

“It’s fine,” Rangiku said, rolling her eyes. “Half the town’s been wracking up rumors since they got married. You’re doing fine.”

“It was kind of a big deal,” Rukia said, with more than a little chagrin. “He’s a bit of a big deal anyway, but my sister and I have never been very well-off, and it just…. Honestly, I’m surprised you didn’t hear about it.”

“I’m a hermit,” you told her, biting your cheek. “I don’t hear about anything.”

“Good for you,” she said enviously. “Wish I could get away with that but-”

“Is any actual work being done over there?” Shuhei asked, cutting her off. Rukia and Orihime both looked quite guilty, suddenly. After a moment of silence, he raised an eyebrow. “I can take you both off the clock, but-”

“It’s fine,” Rukia said automatically. “We’re- we’re brewing.”

“Steeping,” Orihime nodded. “Tea. Tea steeping.” Despite the chatter, your drinks were still done in only a moment or two.

“You should come by again,” Rukia offered, sliding your drink over to you. “Every week or so a group of us meet up and just… talk and study and all that stuff. It would be nice to see you more often.”

“Yeah!” Orihime piped in, scrawling Rangiku’s name very badly on her cup. “You’d meet everyone!”

“Everyone?” You asked dubiously, charmed despite yourself. They were so energetic, so cheerful, and yet… you wanted that. You were, for the first time in a long time, happy to talk to people your own age.

“There are around ten of us,” Rukia corrected her. “Not too many people.”

“More than I already know,” you joked, shrugging. “I’d. I’d love to, sometime.”

“Cool,” Rangiku said, reaching across the counter to take her cup. “My job here is done.”

Back up main street, she did less talking, both of you sipping your drinks in quiet, companionable silence. Your tea was iced, which you hadn’t asked for but appreciated anyway, and by the time you reached your own front door again, your fingers were pleasantly numbed by the cold.

“We’re back!” Rangiku shouted. You couldn’t help but smile at the tiredly happy talk between them, unintelligible to you as you pulled off your coat.

“Nobody broke in while I was away?” You asked, and Rangiku waved a hand at you both as her phone rang. 

“Nope,” he said, crossing his legs over the arm of your couch. “Not that I know of.” The door closed behind her, and you could hear, faintly, a conversation begin.

“Oh yeah?” You snorted. “Were you asleep the whole time?”

“No,” he insisted. “I did a lot of snooping. Violated so much of your privacy.”

“Oh?” You asked, smiling. “Like what?”

“Looked around. You’re still seeing him, then?” Gin asked, nodding at the shirt thrown over the arm of your chair. You nodded, avoiding his eyes and picking at your sleeve.

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?” You were going for airy. Uncaring. You sounded distracted, maybe, but you doubted it had the intended effect. His eyes only narrowed further, mouth settling into a small frown.

“Sounds like something happened, is all,” he said, eyes following you as you moved. You still didn’t look up, hands twisted in the hem of your shirt.

“Not- it’s not like anything has really changed,” you tried, but all this did was make him frown more deeply. He sat up, all alertness.

“What did he do?” Gin asked, and there was no anger in his voice, but there was no surprise, either. You stopped, staring at him with uncertainty for a long moment. You sat across from him, and your arms twisted up around your chest without your permission.

“It was good,” you said quietly. “It was strange and terrible and good, the first few times. Even if I worried. Even if I hurt. Even if we were too close to being caught. I liked it. I liked not having control.” You looked up at him, and there was a twist of pain in his face. “But I didn’t know- I don’t know much, and- he wanted things and I didn’t and I couldn’t ask- he didn’t ask- and I-“

“Shh,” Gin said, and his hand was soft where it landed on the crown of your head. “It’s okay.” He met your eye when you looked up, unsmiling and set. “I’ll make it okay.” Something in his voice was dark, full of old resentment and new fury. He pulled away as if to leave, and you caught the hand that had been on your head as he moved. You knew he could pull his hand from yours without thinking. Your fingers were weak compared to his. He stayed, though, paused, held back to listen to you.

“It’s okay,” you repeated earnestly. “We- we did talk, and he made it better, and we- it’s okay, really.”

“Is what he did to you something that can be made better?” Gin asked bluntly, fingers curling into yours. You thought of the boundless joy on Father Aizen’s face, the slow tightening of the belt, the mass of fear in your chest. How softly he’d bent under your hands. How gently he’d pulled you from his bathtub, the soft towel over your shoulders and his hands on your face. The way your heart sang when he had touched you with bruising force, the way he’d felt in your arms when he’d called himself a god. The way you’d felt.

“Yes,” you said. “I think... maybe you have the wrong idea.” Gin looked back at you, still full to the brim with anger. He sighed, shoulders slowly lowering. He sat. He pulled his hand from yours slowly, gently, and touched his fingers over his forehead, as if to hide his face. To shade his eyes from the sun.

“Tell me,” he asked, eyeing you from under his hand. “How angry should I be?”

“Um,” you said. Your drink sat, dripping condensation on the table, and you reached for it to give yourself a moment. He gave a lopsided smile at that and you grimaced. “It really wasn’t that bad.”

“You’re not helping yourself there, kid.” He shifted, and the anger was still there, you saw. Wrapped up in concern, pushed down, but very much still there.

“Stop calling me kid,” you replied absently. “He just- we were in the middle of uh. Well. And he took his belt and he had me put it around his neck. And I wasn’t- it wasn’t that bad. It was lovely, really, but. But he didn’t ask, so I wasn’t ready to. And then after I was crying he let me into the bath and we talked and he gave me a safe word and then he had me do it again to show me, and.” You looked up to find Gin looking stonily at your hands. You cleared your throat. “It really wasn’t that bad.”

“He didn’t ask,” Gin repeated quietly. “Did he ask before? If you wanted to fuck ‘im? Did he ask if you wanted to do all the other things he probably wanted you to do?” You swallowed, looking down at your drink. The sticker label was soft and swollen with condensation, and you fidgeted with it, peeling off stripes of sticky, wet, marshmallow paper.

“I think he did,” you said, but you couldn’t remember, not really. You could feel his hands on you, his lips on your throat, on your lips, you could remember the hot scythe of pressure in your body when he’d first taken you. You could remember his voice and his smile. You had vague, marbled memories, brief moments between sensation where he might have asked permission.

But you couldn’t say, not for sure. Father Aizen liked to take. You shook your head at Gin, scraping with the edges of your fingernails over the label. 

“You think,” Gin said.

“If he didn’t,” you asked, slowly, carefully. “And if I don’t care about it, does it matter?”

“Yes,” Gin said, and his voice was insistent, painfully earnest. “He’s got a way with people, Sosuke. He can reach into you and make you want what he wants.” He looked at you, full and clear, and for the first time you realized his eyes were blue. “It matters,” he repeated. “Because one day you might turn around and realize that what he wants you to be isn’t who you are.”

“I don’t know who I am now,” you admitted, the adhesive of your drink’s label still stuck, uncomfortably, under your fingernails. You could feel it, pressing between your nails and your skin, itching, unwanted. “I don’t know who he is.” You looked down, then back into Gin’s eyes, your fingers and your heart coming to a slow consensus. “I don’t think I want to stop just yet.”

“As long as that’s the decision you made for yourself,” he said slowly. “I’ve got no call debatin’ it. But be careful listening too hard to him.” There was a sound at the door, Rangiku fiddling with it as if about to come in. He stood, reaching out to brush a hand over your hair. “You’re a sweet kid,” he said, and his voice was as soft as his touch. “He likes to break sweet things.”

“There are different kinds of broken,” you reminded him, offering a small smile. “I might like his.” He looked at you, face tight with worry despite the smile. The anger was still there, too, lurking. The door opened, and he tensed, before shaking his head.

“Don’t know why I bother,” he drawled, sighing, and the tension dropped a little from his shoulders.

“Don’t know why you bother doing what?” Rangiku asked, closing the door behind her.

“Arguing with college kids,” he replied, and she snorted, coming in close to kiss his cheek.

“Pretty sure that one’s a graduate.”

“Mm,” you agreed, raising your cup at them. “Full-blown adult.”

“Can’t believe that,” Gin said blandly.

“Can’t relate,” Rangiku said at the same time. You bit your lip as they looked at each other.

“Please,” you said dryly. “Leave my home before you start making out like teenagers on my couch.”

“I think you mean ‘like newlyweds,’” Gin said, grinning. “Which we are.”

“You disgust me,” you said fondly. “Get out of my sight.”

“See you next week!” Rangiku called as she shut your door.

“Next week?” You asked, but she was gone. “She really means to make me some friends, doesn’t she?” Nobody answered. Nobody was there to.

“Who called?” Gin asked.

“School. I have to go in for a meeting,” Rangiku grimaced. “It shouldn’t take more than an hour or two.”

“Alright,” he nodded, and said nothing more.

Gin walked her to the front step before pulling away. 

“Where you going?” Rangiku asked, and Gin looked at her, face full of smile. 

“Just gonna talk to Sosuke about something. I’ll be back in an hour.” She watched him, and her eyes narrowed, worry and premonition.

“Something new?” She asked, something painful in her voice. Gin leaned in close again, pressing a kiss to her temple.

“Something new,” he agreed. His hand stroked over her hair, and Rangiku softened, just a little. “Nothing to worry about,” he lied gently. “Promise.”

“Swear it?”

“Cross my heart,” he shrugged, grinning. She watched him leave, something pensive in her face, quickly swept away by certainty.

“Better keep that promise,” she muttered, turning back to the school. “Or I’ll drown you in our bathtub, you stupid man.”

The doors opened too slowly for Gin’s liking, the old, weighted wood swinging out heavily. He entered calmly, measured and almost at ease. Aizen was perched behind the pulpit, muttering to himself, and the sight of him made Gin’s hands twitch at his sides.

“Sosuke.” Aizen looked up, not quite processing the emotion in Gin’s voice. He looked relaxed, unassuming. No sign that he’d been doing despicable things in the next room only last night.

“Gin,” he said, looking mildly startled. “I wasn’t expecting you. Are you and Rangik-“ Gin’s hand slammed into his chest, flat and unwavering.

“Shut up,” he said curtly, smile small and fixed and nasty.

Gin drove him back, those thin, spidery hands white on his shoulder, curled unforgivingly in the black of his robes. The impact of Father Aizen’s spine slamming into the wall shook the altar, rattled the stained glass saints in their panes. Their legs were tangled, Gin’s taut and ready to move, Aizen’s loose and bent, barely supporting him under the weight of his friend’s fury. Nonetheless, he merely reached up to remove his glasses, his other hand curling loosely around Gin’s wrist. His whole being was cold, tense and ready for a fight beneath Gin’s touch. 

“Privately, Gin,” he said tightly, and the thin line of Gin’s mouth pressed itself thinner. His knuckles were bone-white, and it was hard to imagine his grip tightening any further.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” He sneered, pulling back and tugging the priest with him. “Fine. Privately, then.” Gin knew where his office was, had slipped in often enough to know just where the lock was, even half-blind with anger. 

“Gin,” Aizen began, before Gin turned back to him and advanced. Long, loping strides that chased him back to the wall. His hand pressed flat again on Aizen’s chest, purposeful. He tore the white collar from its place, undid the buttons of the Father’s shirt, revealing, slowly, surely, the band of violet bruising where his belt had cut into his throat. The revulsion on his face clear as day, Gin stepped back. 

“I warned you,” he hissed, his expression cold and hard. “All those years ago, I warned you and you swore-”

“I know what I swore,” Aizen said tiredly. He leaned back, resting his weight against the wall.

“Then you know what I’ll do.” He looked up at Gin, then away.

“I’ve never gone far enough to warrant that before,” he said, beginning to rebutton his shirt. “What makes you think I’d cross this line now, after all this time?”

“Maybe you have crossed it before,” Gin countered, hand still fisted at his side. “Maybe this is just the first time you’ve been so obvious about it.”

“I wouldn’t,” Aizen said, looking at Gin with narrowed eyes. “Everything this girl does, she does without force.” Gin’s fingers twitched, 

“That’s not what she said,” Gin spat. “You can’t just put her hands around your throat and tell her to squeeze, Sosuke.”

“Technically, it was the belt first,” Aizen murmured, polishing his glasses on his robe.

“That’s not better,” Gin hissed. “You take things too far, Sosuke. You’ve hurt her.”

“I made amends,” he replied, steel entering his own eyes. 

“You softened her up so she’d forgive you,” Gin countered, unamused. “You gave her a few pretty words and a soft touch and suddenly she was on her knees again.” He reached up and took ahold of Aizen’s shirt again, right by the collar, knuckles white with force.

“Well, you know I like them on their knees,” Aizen said, and maybe he knew it was a mistake. Probably, even. But the ice-cold fury in Gin’s face was still sparse warning for the fist that drove into his eye. He was knocked back, toppling a crucifix from the wall and sliding down onto the floor. He panted, blinking blood away, and smiled smugly at Gin. 

“You get one second chance,” Gin said calmly, dragging him back up with the fist still wrapped in his shirt. “One. You know that. She comes crying to me even once and you know I’ll keep my promise.”

“Ever so diligent,” Aizen said, teasing, mocking, and Gin smiled an ugly smile.

“You were on my side last time,” he said softly, leaning in close. “This time you’re not.” Aizen’s mouth trembled, opened, half-smiling. Gin’s hand pressed more deeply, knuckles digging sharply into his chest. Aizen laughed, choking, Gin’s grasp almost touching the violet of the bruises around his throat before he pulled away, letting Aizen sag against the wall under his own weight. “Bastard,” he said flatly.

“You really do think I’m capable of the worst things,” Aizen said mildly, reaching up to adjust his collar. “Have you told her?” He stood, stumbling a little. “Have you whispered all the terrible things I’ve done into her ear?”

“What could I say?” Gin shrugged. “It’s not a simple story.”

“It’s also not over,” Aizen said, smiling back. “Clearly we still don’t have peace.”

“We’ll never have peace,” Gin said softly. “Not ‘til you’re dead.” He moved back and turned away to leave. Aizen’s smile flickered, tugged up on one side. His voice echoed in the room, high-raftered and cold.

“I suppose you still mean to finish this yourself, then?” Gin paused, froze, looked back just enough so they could see each other’s faces.

“The moment you give me a chance,” he agreed, the soft words almost a hiss between his lips. He left easily, his steps so quiet Aizen couldn’t even hear them over the blood still rushing through his head. He stayed down, breathing heavily, head buzzing. He laughed, breathless and high on adrenaline and blood.

“Oh, Gin,” he huffed. His voice was strained with breathlessness. “Such a nice child,” he breathed, between laughs, “You’re a foolish, chivalrous man, even now.” The door closed carelessly behind Gin, distant and final. Aizen laughed, again, wiping blood from his eye. 

Rangiku was already out on the steps again by the time he got back, facing the school and talking animatedly into her phone. The last of his anger faded, already lessened by the furious walk down the hill and through the town. Seeing her settled something in him, reassured a lingering doubt that never left him, even after so many years. Seeing her fine, safe, in one piece- Gin felt the world was more stable. More whole. She hung up the phone and he stepped up closer.

“How’s work?” He asked, and she turned, smiling.

“Not bad. Momo’s gotten herself an extension on every paper she’s missed this year and the administration wanted to know why.” She landed heavily on the last stair, stopping so they were eye-to-eye. “How’s Aizen?”

“Not bad,” he smiled brightly, and she shook her head. Liar, she thought, and though it was bitter, it was fond.

“Don’t lie to me,” Rangiku chastised him. “It’s unfair if you keep all your worries to yourself.” Gin sighed, looping his arm around her waist and pulling her down the last step.

“He’s an evil rat bastard,” Gin said. “Better?”

“Same as always, then?” Rangiku asked wryly.

“Worse,” he murmured, and she leaned into his chest. They walked more slowly like that, all tangled up, but it was nice enough that neither of them minded. They were both silent for a time, lost in their thoughts, leaves crackling under their feet and wind blowing softly, coldly, through their hair. “Ran,” he asked, in a voice half-memory and half-thought. “If I did something terrible, something… really bad. You’d move on, wouldn’t you? You wouldn’t let me tie you down?”

“What are you thinking you’ve done?” She asked, and he looked at her from the corner of his eye. She sighed. “I might forgive you,” she said softly. “I might not. I couldn’t say for sure, but I like to believe that I know you too well to think terrible means the same thing to both of us.” He held her more tightly, and his fingers dug into her shoulder. “I’d forgive you, I think.” 

“Don’t,” he said, in a soft, rueful voice. “Don’t forgive me.”

“You plan on doing something terrible?” She asked, and he stopped dead, face still soft and clouded with doubt. 

“Nah,” he said, and though his smile was forced, was painfully false, she didn’t say anything more. He kissed her forehead, and she leaned into his chest. “Nah, I’m not planning anything. Too worn out,” he joked. “Just got married, y’see. She’s sucked me dry. You, Mrs. Ichimaru. You’re a wild woman with a ring on your finger.” She elbowed him playfully, muttering something about how he should keep his snake in his pants next time, then, shouldn’t he? and he laughed, really laughed.

She could almost forget what he’d said.

Almost.

“You went to see Sosuke about her, didn’t you?” She asked, and his hand squeezed her more tightly, though he didn’t say anything. She waited, hoping he’d say something. He didn’t. “I remember what he said, after. You dragged him out of my hospital room, but he came to apologize.” She didn’t look at Gin’s face. She knew his smile had disappeared, that his eyes were tight. “It’s still the most desperate I’ve ever seen him.”

“I want to believe that,” he said quietly. “I do. But you know him, Ran. You know what he’s like.”

“He’s not that good of a liar,” she said. 

“He’s good enough,” Gin told her, voice dark. She could feel him exhale, see the soft billow of fogged breath in the cold air. “He’s got her all wrapped up in him. More than any of them.”

“She’s not like them,” Rangiku said firmly. “She’s not like us, either.”

“That’s what makes me worry,” he admitted. “She’s so young.”

“We were younger.” 

“Yeah,” Gin agreed. “And we got hurt.” He let his head fall onto hers, his cheek resting on the crown of her head, cold skin on warm, soft curls. “He hurt us.”

“She’s not us,” Rangiku repeated, looping her arm more tightly around his waist. “She’s got us. We’ll look out for her.”

“We’re not her parents,” Gin told her, bemusedly. “I refuse to be a parent this young.”

“We’re older siblings, then,” she corrected herself. “Cool older siblings.”

“You want me to babysit for you?” He teased her. “Get in your good graces and sneak you some sake through your bedroom window even though we’re both just dumb teenagers?”

“You do know how to show a girl a good time,” she hummed. “Maybe one day you’ll learn not to make offers I’ll take you up on.”

“I’m not babysitting,” he said immediately.

“Are you sure?” She asked. He sighed.

“Not anymore.”

“Buy me some of the good sake and we’ll see,” she said, and though they kept walking into the cold, she felt warm enough to ward it away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not... entirely pleased with this. It's still a little off from what I wanted it to be, but it's close enough for now lol


	8. Advent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A very belated Christmas Special

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know if anyone is still reading this story, but if you are.... I'm so sorry it's taken me this long.

The snow began falling the week before Christmas. It had rained for weeks, late November swept away in a rush of clouds and water and selling holly to people who didn’t care about the Geiger counter ticking in the corner of the store. You stopped caring, too, after long enough listening to it. It was comforting, in an ominous way, like the tick of a clock. Perpetual and unabating. It carried you through the month, swept you unthinking and unconcerned to December twenty-fifth, where you woke with a clear and certain purpose in your mind.

The sheets were cold, the blankets heavy and air-chilled when you peeled them from your warm body. The whole room smelled of snow. The window was cracked, though you’d locked it before you slept last night. You felt all anew, crystallized with intent. You felt powerful.

You had the day off, not because it was Christmas, but because Urahara wanted to sleep- and you took the opportunity to do some maintenance on your life. You cleaned the windows, assessed the latches, tightened the screws that kept the hinges in place. You tried to pretend there was a question of whether or not you’d go to Midnight Mass. You knew you would, you had woken up knowing you would, knowing it had been almost a month since you’d seen Father Aizen. Knowing exactly what you would do. You just had to make it to midnight. The hours crawled, then ran, then struggled to pass. You cleaned your sink. Then your floors. Then rearranged your bookshelf. Alphabetically.

Eventually you resigned yourself to reading, perched uneasily on a chair with a copy of Wuthering Heights. You’d seen it in the used book shop down the street, and the memory of Father Aizen’s mouth on your throat, the words slipping from his tongue half-apology, half-explanation, had driven you to buy it. “Emily Bronte,” he’d said. “A great lover of destruction.” You had hoped to feel the same way reading it as you had hearing it from his lips, moved and struck and emptied by the sheer volume of emotion.

Instead you felt impatience. It was a pale imitation of what you’d felt- close, yes, violent and gripping and ruinous, but nowhere near as vivid, as painful and perfect and terrible as the things it tried to recreate. Perhaps it was the best words could do, the closest they came, the best they could struggle to pin an afterimage to a page. Perhaps you simply wanted too much from them. You kept reading, in vain, tempted to simply resell the book again when you were done. Cathy inched her way to an inevitable doom, the sun moved slowly towards night, and you waited, struggling to keep yourself calm. 

Finally, at last, the clock made its way to ten thirty, sky darker than black, spattered with faint stars and the glimmering gold of light pollution. The snow had stopped, but it still littered the streets like white ash, bunched up in corners and laid over the fences and hedges like handfuls of sugar. It was punishingly cold. Groups of carolers moved from door to door, the music echoing on the street faint and beautiful.

You took a shower, just this side of cold, lost in thought. You put on your nicest stockings, your newest, neatest white shoes. Two inches of heel, solid and girlish in their thickness. White satin and beautiful silk ribbon. You took the red dress your mother had never worn and slipped it over your shoulders, surprised by how easily it fit. You had forgotten, after so long, that she wasn’t much taller than you, that her frame was only a little different. That you were linked by genetics, by time. By the inevitability of your growing into the shape she’d left behind for you. You looked into your own eyes in the mirror, cold and doubtful, sad and empty. You ran your hands down your body, red satin slick as water over your skin. You tightened your garters, still starched, still new, and lifted your skirt just enough to see them white and shimmering where they rested on your thighs. Just right. You felt the same cold purpose as you had that morning, before it had faded in the day. Powerful and driving, fierce and hungry. You wondered if this was how he felt, when you bowed to him. 

You took your mother’s coat, too, untouched for all the years she’d been gone. It was soft, heavy and thick and long. White, too, like snow, and more than enough to make up for the complete lack of weather-appropriate clothing beneath it until you could make it into the church. The walk up the hill would be hellish, you knew, but you were resolved. You had an idea, and you refused to release it. The red lipstick was yours, reserved usually for family functions and school events, but you hadn’t used it in months. It smelled sickly sweet, like some imitation of honey and beeswax. It was dark, deep enough to pass for blood, and it made you look dangerous. Good, you thought, smiling to yourself in the glass. That was what you wanted. 

It had been almost a month, after all. 

You had the walk up the hill all but memorized- you knew where all the turns were, where all the dips and stones and grasses were hidden beneath the snow. You reached the front door just as the clock began chiming out eleven. The door opened with a delicate creak under your touch, and the church- almost full, so very public- turned as one to look. You smiled, blood-red and deeply sweet, and met Father Aizen’s eye down the aisle. He looked at once both surprised and smug. You didn’t break your gaze as you walked to your customary seat. Steadily, slowly, you moved, unhurried by social custom or the heated glares of those already seated. You walked like you imagined one might walk into their own funeral, curiosity sated and a catlike smugness curling your mouth.

He was dressed more richly than you’d ever seen him. Gold brocade robes, like something from the Vatican of old, draped over his shoulders, rippled down to his feet. There were hints of copper and a deep red beneath, but the gold kept drawing your eye. It glittered, shone with a clarity, a purity, that gave you a suspicious feeling that perhaps they were robes of real gold thread. They were ostentatious, unsuitable for such a small town, but he wore them with such gravitas that nobody seemed to think anything of them. His cheeks were flushed, from the cold or the ecstasy of the night, you couldn’t say.

His eyes were dark and hungry, and you felt nothing but warmth.

You slipped into your seat, your usual pew, your coat settling high on your shoulders, curling lazily up around your throat. Nobody could tell what you were wearing underneath. Not even him. And he looked, oh, did he look, eyes fixed on your red, red smile as he spoke passionately of new beginnings, holy signs. The most sacred, innocent time of year- the advent of the Savior’s birth. You heard all of this, and where before it may have caused you shame to hear, to know that your heart was in another place altogether, now it only made your smile deepen, because you knew that his heart was in the same place. He spoke, and spoke, and spoke, and all the while you smiled at him, you crossed your legs beneath your coat and let yourself burn quietly with arousal and anticipation.

His voice was beautiful, after all, deep and melodic and clear. It resonated in those holy halls, reverbated and sang in the echoes of the wood and stone. Hypnotically, methodically, the rise and fall of it drew you into a daze. You waited, smiling and buzzing with the flow of his words, hearing none of them, and when he finished speaking, then praying, then leading hymns, you held back. The rest of the congregation filed out, ready to set themselves to sleep, ready to wake in the morning and return, to sit in these same seats and listen to words like these, but not like these. Ready to carry out traditions, open presents, eat breakfast. Live their normal lives.

The last of them left, and the old wooden doors swept closed with a final, quiet thud. Anticipation bubbled in you, and you stood. The lock on the doors was old, too, but strong. Solid enough to hold out anyone with less than an axe. You locked the doors, and turned, eyes snapping up without hesitation to meet his. You walked to the raised dais of the chancel, took each step to the altar. You stood before him, smile loosened and softened into something almost sweet. You reached up and pulled the coat from your shoulders, letting it crumple at your feet, your back. He watched, eyes unblinking.

“Father,” you said, and your voice did not shake. He stared at you, his eyes heavy as they met yours and gazed relentlessly into you. “Father Aizen,” and his pupils widened, hungry and full of all the power he could hold over you. “I’d like to give you a gift.” He nodded, briefly, barely, a king acquiescing to a servant's trivial request. You knelt, your knees cold in white lace where they rested on the stone floor. Your dress crumpled over your thighs, red as blood and holly, and his eyes followed you as you sank. Prostrate, submissive. At his very mercy. You parted his robes, all that majesty, all the gold brocade and glittering embroidered silk pushed reverently aside so you might reach the plain black beneath, the burning heat of his body, the rising warmth between his legs, intensifying with every breath. He looked down at you from under his eyelashes, dark and shadowed in the candlelight, and threaded his fingers through your hair. You wondered what he saw. A supplicant, praying as best they could on bended knee? A servant, head bowed and shame weighing on their shoulders? 

“No,” he murmured, something illegible in his face. “Not like this.” He pulled his hand from your face and reached for the clasps at his throat. The golden thread, jeweled silk, shining brilliant robes fell to the floor, a puddle of rich fabric splayed behind him. You blinked, startled. All in black, now, humbler clothes for a man of less arrogance, perhaps, less vanity and pride, but still resplendent in his own right. More natural, in a way, and far more familiar to you.

“Father?” You looked back up at him, and his hand curled around your chin to lift it. Whatever he saw, you knew you had a superior view. The warm, soft-shadowed planes of his face, the long spread of his body, the way the candlelight hit his glasses, the halo of gold on his hair- he truly did look like something from a medieval triptych, all darkness and light, rich splendor and humble shadows. “Wh-” His thumb brushed over your mouth, pressing into your lip with a kind of possessive force that made your voice die. It was soft; white satin like his lips on yours, and warm. The deep, bloody red of your lipstick smeared over his glove, made a rough track of red around your mouth. You knew it would stain his hand far longer than your skin, but still, all you felt was warmth.

“Better,” he said, a strange, sly half-smile on his lips. “Far better, little dove.” He bent forward a little, lowered his lips to yours, and broke away with your lipstick smeared bloody over his mouth. There was a shifty, uncomfortable honesty in his face. “Far better in black.” You knew your eyes showed some of your surprise because he looked away, face hardening back into his usual calm mask.

“I’m glad, Father,” you said, finally. You paused, looked lower, avoiding his eyes. The words held on your tongue, true but shameful, and you could only force them out when he lifted your chin once more. The command was implicit in his face. “I like you as you are,” you admitted, and lowered your eyes. He blinked down at you once, looking almost touched, before clearing his throat and nodding. You smiled up at him, turning your face to press a kiss to the palm of his hand where it rested beside your cheek.

“You mentioned a gift,” he said, and your smile widened. 

“An offering,” you agreed. Your fingers crept up to his belt once more, smooth, fine leather sliding from its place under your nimble fingers. You parted the worn black of his trousers, tugging them to his feet, and pressed a reverent kiss to the tip of his cock. “All that I can give,” you admitted, and then slid forward until your lips were pressed to the base of him. His eyes fluttered shut as your lips closed, red and warm around his shaft, and the taste of his skin made you sigh. It was a strange thing to find familiar, but as his hand tangled in your hair, firmly, tugging just this side of painful, you found yourself filled with a comfort, a softness, you couldn’t name. You moved your head back and forth as he wished, following his pull, the rhythm of his hips. The flow of salt and musk washing over your tongue was inconstant, leaking in bursts and droplets down your throat. 

“A sweet gift, indeed,” he sighed, fingers stroking through your hair. “How pleasing you are, little dove, to offer so much in return for so little.” His grasp tightened, suddenly, and you found your face pushed into the dark, neatly trimmed curls at the root of his cock. He rolled his hips once more, deeply into your throat, and came with a low moan. You swallowed as best you could, mouth and throat all but too full of him, and he pulled you from his shaft with a smile. “Perhaps you deserve a gift of your own.” His come dripped from your mouth, mixing with the last of your lipstick- the rest of it smeared over his cock, a violent deep red. “Undress,” he commanded, in a voice like liquid silk. He undid the buttons of his shirt, pulled the white collar from its place, and stood before you bare and undaunted.

You stood, swallowing one last time, and reached up behind your back. This dress unzipped, which was new to you. You’d been able to close it easily, so you expected the same when it came to undressing, but when the zipper reached about the midpoint of your back, your arm stuck. You reached under, to grasp the zipper from below, but Father Aizen reached out and touched your elbow in warning.

“Allow me,” he said, brooking no argument. You turned, wordlessly, obediently, and he slid the zipper down to your hips with an easy, fluid grace that almost unnerved you. There was never any hesitation in his movements, never any doubt. How wonderful it must be, you thought, to be at home in your own life. You reached up to where the dress began to unsettle at your shoulder and pulled it down your arm. First the right, then the left, and the dress slid easily from your body, pooling around your feet. If you looked down, you could see the gold of Father Aizen’s robes mingling with the red of your dress. You didn’t get much of a chance to look down, though, because your attention was drawn by his slight, almost silent, intake of breath. You looked up at him, then down to where his gaze was held on your legs.

“Do you like them?” You asked, a little shyly. “I never had a reason to wear them before, but-”

“They suit you,” he said quietly. He stepped closer, his fingers trailing over the top of one stocking, catching lightly on the garter’s strap. “They make you look…”

“Like a child playing dress-up?” You asked, half-resigned. He shook his head, a whisper of a smile crossing his face before it disappeared.

“They make you look your age,” he said. You wanted to ask what he meant, where that came from, how on earth you could ever not look your age, all too serious, all too dour for your contemporaries- but he kissed you, then, the few drops of come smearing over his mouth with the red stain left on yours, his teeth solid and sharp and welcome where they nipped at the plush center of your lip. His hands curled possessive, heated and familiar around your neck, the heavy pulse of your heartbeat rising in your veins when they tightened.

“Father-” You gasped, not unpleasantly, and the slight lift of your mouth was countered only by the touch of one hand to his. “Please.” He hesitated, eyes narrowed, before his gaze dropped to his fingers curled around your throat. He nodded, pressing a biting, suffocating kiss to your mouth, the red between your lips bleeding like ink into your cheeks, your chin, the quick nip of his teeth on your jaw.

“Be mine, little dove,” he whispered into your lips. “Be sweet to me, be small.”

“Yes, Father,” you gasped, his grasp tightening.

“May I?” He asked, and his fingers pressed in tighter, as if to ask. You felt the rhythm of your heart begin to pound in your head, buzzing and numb. Your legs felt gone, trembling beneath you, and though the heated slick between your legs grew thick, you felt a great deal of fear. 

“Mercy,” you begged, eyes fluttering open, gazing pleadingly into his. His grasp contracted then released, and you fell, sinking to your knees as he lowered you to the floor. You coughed into the heat of his shoulder as he held you close. “Please, “ you murmured, fingers curling into the soft skin of his back. “Have mercy.”

“Yes,” he said, resting his head on yours. “I’ll be merciful, little dove. I’ll be kind.” His voice wasn’t gentle. It was low, and you could hear some softness in it, but it was still distant, still rife with hunger.

“I’m sorry,” you said, your legs regaining sensation. “I don’t mean to be afraid.”

“I mean to frighten, sometimes,” Father Aizen admitted, smiling fondly into the darkness of your hair. “It is no fault of yours.” You looked up, into his eyes, and they were shadowed with feeling you couldn’t quite read. Pleasure, yes, and a strange, vicious delight, but something else. Something like wistfulness or regret. 

“No more,” you told him, and though he looked to you with a kind of suspicion, you stood firm. “Please, Father. At least for now.” Your voice cracked, and you swallowed. “At least for tonight.” His eyes cleared, and though he couldn’t seem to stomach deferring to your wishes, he managed a nod. You nodded back, resting your head once more on his shoulder, and his arm curled up around you to hold you closer. You could feel the cold again, banished in only a few places by the heat of his own body.

“My Repin,” he murmured, lifting his other hand to trace down the slope of your nose. “My Pieta.”

“Nothing so holy, Father,” you smiled, half-laughing at the idea.

“I must disagree.” He laid you down quickly, letting you rest over the cold stone and leaning over you to cage you in. “There is little more holy than suffering without cause.”

“I must disagree,” you echoed him, with no little fondness, and the answering quirk of his mouth felt a little like victory. “What are you thinking about?” You asked, before you could regret it.

“Only how I might make amends for breaking my promise so easily.” His eyes remained distant, dark. Familiar.

“However you wish, Father,” you said, with a wry smile. “I trust you.” 

“Don’t,” he whispered, kissing you once more. You felt his hand rest on your side, a warm weight that curled around your hip and pressed into your bones. He felt unfairly solid, warm and whole and heavy in a way that grounded you. The pulse of blood returning to your brain, your face, your throat, had begun to echo through your stomach, the hollow, heated rise between your legs. His lips moved insistently over yours, long, deep kisses that made your body soften, your muscles loosen and melt. The heat of him was strange, pressing you into the ice-cold stone of the floor. Strange, but welcome, and his hand crept from the crest of your hip to the cleave of your thighs to part you, just as burning as the rest of him. Your back arched against the stone, pressing your chest up to his, gasping into his mouth, lips ruddy and wide.

“Father,” you whispered, breathed, and he moved to bite at your neck. Your lipstick left little red patches around where his teeth caught your skin, like footprints, bloody, sweet. His fingers stroked up the long slit of your folds, ticklish and teasing, before two swept between with a kind of experience that made you let out a soft moan and shift, letting your thighs fall further open to welcome him in. His weight settled between your knees, hand still delving, stroking, curling into ou, drawing filthy, echoing sounds from you. The church allowed far too much sound to remain in its walls. You cried out as he bit down on your collar bone, as his fingers pressed into a soft, buzzing space somewhere inside of you.

“Open wider, little dove,” he said, and you did, all the tension bleeding from you as you fell back to lie flat on the chancel floor. The altar loomed, damning and cold somewhere behind you, but you were too dazed with the heat of his skin to even think of it. Everything smelled of myrrh, the smoke of the burning wax coating your body in faint holiness. Smoke and sweat and sweet, sacred gifts to the son of god. You felt alight, burning glimmering gold with the shine of his robes and the flicker of candlelight on the walls. He ran a hand up your leg, fingertips skimming the smooth satin of your garters with a kind of hungry reverence. When he reached your hip once more, he pulled your thigh away, bending your knee up over his shoulder as he moved forward. Leaning over you, cock once more swelling admirably at the wet, slick spread of your entrance, he leaned down as if to kiss you. 

He thrust into you, and you felt a sharp, tearing pain. It wasn’t terrible, wasn’t too much, but it was sudden, and you cried out- you almost cried out. His mouth pressed to yours to swallow the sound, and you gripped his shoulder- his back- his hair- in the quick, desperate moments of heated agony that followed. It was good, almost like pleasure, and your fingers tangled sharply over his shoulder blade, in his warm, soft hair. He pulled back, eyes wide and wild with lust, face red and pink and smeared as if he’d been drinking wine from between your legs. He turned his face, smiling, and pressed a violently stained kiss to the soft, perfect white silk band of the garter on the inside of your thigh. It left a mark, a blood-red imprint of his mouth. His cock slid, aching delightfully, from your core, and then slammed painfully home, hilted in you. You tilted your hips, rolled them up to meet his, and every thrust grew more violent, more painful, gluttonously masochistic between you. You stoked each other to a fever pitch of intensity, as if you were trying to outdo each other’s depravity- for every slick, bruising mark he left on your breasts, you scraped a line into his scalp, dug your heels into his back, bit a sharp, bleeding little divot into his throat. 

You matched him, and it only drove him further, fucking you, driving into you as if possessed. Writhing on the floor beneath the altar, directly in the sight of God, hungry and hollow and empty, you came with a shaking, relieved cry. The abused, sparkingly painful flesh between your legs protested, but he continued to fuck you, continued to roll the base of his cock up over your clit, further prolonging your release until you were little more than a moaning, sobbing mess beneath him. He came inside you, blazing hot, slick with sweat, shaking with every heated spurt of seed that left him. You could feel the weight of it, the heat, deep in the pit of your stomach, and it almost soothed some of the ache. He kept moving, kept thrusting into your slit, stirring up his release and your own, the sweet sting of overstimulation falling over both of you.

He pulled out of you, the friction of his cock leaving you both awful and all too good at once. He sat back on his heels, looking down at you, and leaned down, oddly spontaneous, to press a kiss to the corner of your mouth.

“Thank you, Father,” you murmured, trying to convince your limbs to move. He cracked a smile and stood.

“Thank you for my gift,” he replied, somehow already pulled back into his cool, kindly mask. He looked down at you, thoughtful. “And now for yours.”

“Father?” You asked, tilting your head on the stone floor. “I thought- wasn’t that my gift?”

“No.” He said simply. “That was mine. You… You deserve something less tawdry.” He stared off, distantly, at the one clear glass window over the doors. Through it was the dark sky, set with soft, glimmering stars. He smiled, menacingly, honestly. “Ask me something you want an honest answer to,” he said, and for a moment your mind raced, a thousand queries queueing at your lips. You wondered about his feelings, his past, your relationship. But then you closed your mouth and thought properly about it for a moment. He lifted the brocade robe from behind you, cold and heavy, and laid it over your shoulders.

“What happened between you and Gin?” You asked, pulling it more securely around yourself like a blanket. His lips twitched to see you, and he reached absently behind you to pull your hair out from under it. “You both say you’re friends, but he-”

“He hates me,” he finished for you. He looked at you contemplatively for a moment, then nodded. “You may as well know.”

“I don’t have to-” He pressed a finger to your lips. 

“You may as well know,” he repeated, more firmly. He sighed, shrugging on the other layer of his robes, copper-dark silk, thin but warmer than nothing. You tried not to look too closely, to stare too hard at him, in nothing but deep silk and his skin. It wasn’t sexual, not the heat of want, but there was warmth in it, seeing him walk barefoot, chest and stomach, hips and thighs, a glimpse of his cock, flaccid and pink from orgasm, shown in the gap of his shed and re-purposed finery. It was intimate. It was a touch, a scrap, of familiarity and vulnerability. He returned with the decanter of communion wine and a pair of glasses, padding with ease up to where you sat beside the altar.

“Thank you, Father,” you said, accepting one. “But if it’s private-”

“Everything is private,” he cut you off coldly. “To me.”

“Ah,” you said, and though the warmth of the tableau you’d made between yourselves remained strong and heavy in your chest, you felt the sting of his returned distance all the more clearly. 

“That is what makes it a gift,” he reminded you, still cold. “That’s what makes it precious.” He stared down into the deep red for a moment. “Gin and I…. our history begins unpleasantly,” he admitted, pouring a tall glass for each of you. “I made many mistakes, back then.” he glanced up at you furtively, and admitted, “I make some still. But then… then I was worse.”

“How old were you?”

“Seventeen,” he said curtly. “I was a foolish, cruel child and I grew into a foolish, cruel man. As I’m sure you know.”

“I wouldn’t call you foolish,” you said, and he cracked a smile.

“Cruel is not off the table, I notice.”

You shrugged. “No. But I like it,” you admitted. “It suits you.” His smile faded into something bitter, something old and tired and raw.

“It always has,” he said. 

“When I was seventeen, I made a mistake,” he said, and then continued.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sex scenes always take me ages and I'm not sure why, but I hope this one was at least decent after a three-month wait. The next chapter is all kinds of backstory, and it's a little grim, but you're reading Bleach and you're reading uh. This. So I hope that's not too much of a deterrent lmao
> 
> side note- Aizen is referring to two of my favorite works of art- Repin's Ivan the Terrible and Michelangelo's Pieta, both of which depict a dead figure slumped on the floor in the arms of a parent. Make of that what you will, I guess.


End file.
